This is the Lake Superior satellite picture from Tuesday, May 9, 2023. There’s still some snow on the ground in the higher elevations west of Marquette. You can also see a layer of smoke over Ontario from wildfires in Western Canada.
The town of Herman, west of Marquette had a four-day total of 52″ of snowfall from April 30-May 3, including a record 27″ of snow on May 2. That the was the most snow ever in a calendar day anywhere in the U.S. east of the Rockies during the month of May. They had 32″ of snow on the ground on May 3rd.
Here’s Mont Ripley near Houghton Wednesday AM, May 10. There are still patches of snow on the ski hill.
5.5% of the U.S. has a snow cover. This is almost all in the Western U.S. Much of the West had well above average precipitation this winter/spring and heavy mountain snows will continue to feed western rivers (like the Colorado) well into the early summer.
Many of the lakes are still frozen over from N. Minnesota to the north. This area has had a cold winter and spring and thick ice has been slow to melt.
The picture above shows the “Manitoba Great Lakes”, including Lake Winnipeg, the world’s 12th largest freshwater lake. You can see the lakes here are still ice covered. Grand Forks ND was 7.5 degrees colder than average in April and 11.8 degrees colder than average in March.
