Accumulating wet snow and gusty winds began in northern lower Michigan Tuesday evening and through Wednesday, with another high impact winter storm possible across the region Friday night and Saturday night.
School districts in the county braced for potential hazardous travel conditions and closed on Wednesday due to icy roads. Local outdoor recreation businesses on the other hand like Timberlee Hills Snow Tubing in Elmwood Township welcomed the snowy weather by announcing that they were finally opening for the season on Friday.
Despite a slow start to the winter season due to an El Niño in place, a storm system made its way to the area this week, bringing with it dangerous weather like consistent scattered snow showers, patchy blowing snow, and slushy accumulations on roads. While the first system that moved into the area was more of a wet and slushy mix, this weekend’s cooler weather is anticipated to bring a second round of snow with colder temperatures.
U.S. National Weather Service Gaylord Meteorologist Harold Dippman said Wednesday morning they had received overnight reports from people bordering the county in Lake Ann of about six to seven inches of snow. Dippman said because temperatures were marginal at just above freezing, inland towns like Maple City and Cedar were expected to get higher accumulations than those near the lakeshore.
“We’ve definitely flipped to a much more wintery pattern here… This weekend’s storm air mass is going to be much cooler than this previous system, so we are expecting all snow and not much in the way of rain mixing issues like we were facing with this last system,” Dippman said. “This system is showing that it could be on the gustier side with some stronger wind gusts — there are concerns that blowing and drifting could be a bit more widespread than this previous one.”
With the next storm set to roll in Friday afternoon, Dippman said people should anticipate road travel to be more treacherous with reduced visibility and blowing and drifting snow likely.
“In ice and snow take it slow, that’s what we always say,” he said. “Be sure to monitor the forecast for the latest updates because there is a lot on the board here over the next week and there could be some changes.”
Kerry Kelly, chairman of the Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes, was out early Wednesday morning to check on snow conditions at the park. He said on Tuesday, there wasn’t enough snow on the ground at the Heritage Trail to groom and compact it, adding that they need at least six inches to do any kind of grooming. While he was unsure of the total snowfall from the first system by the time the paper went to press Wednesday, he’s hopeful they’ll be getting more snow with the second storm on the way.
“Certainly it feels like winter, we’re going to get colder weather and that’s great,” Kelly said. “It’s beautiful in the forest, so taking a winter hike is great, too. We hiked up on Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive (a couple days ago) and that was beautiful. I saw a lot of tracks (from people), so I would recommend that. The Empire Bluff Trail will be a great trail to hike right now as well…” In Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, people can get outside with a number of winter recreational activities such as hiking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, and riding fat tire bikes along the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail. Kerry suggests utilizing traction cleats that fit over shoes or hiking boots if people do get out on trails that could be icy at this point.
