The top map is national snowcover Sunday (2/26). 41.8% of the U.S. has snow on the ground. There is snow on the ground in Michigan north of I-94, but pretty much no snow on the ground in Indiana and Ohio.
Lots of people out on the slopes at Bittersweet Ski Area Sunday afternoon. Not only did Bittersweet have power through the latest storm, but I watched them make snow during the night and groom the snow into a fresh, even base.
Here’s some weekend snow depths: 1″ – Hastings, Lansing, Caledonia, Paw Paw, Detroit. 2″ – Grand Rapids, East Gr. Rapids, Fremont, Grand Ledge, Traverse City and Ann Arbor. 3″ – Muskegon, Holland, Ionia, Saranac, Ada and Lowell. 4″ – Flint. 5″ – White Cloud and Beulah. 6″ Alma and Detour Village. 7″ – E. Jordan, Gladwin, Grayling and Saginaw. 8″ – Charlevoix, Grawn and Escanaba. 9″ – Houghton Lake and E. Tawas. 10″ – Garden Corners (in the U.P.). 11″ – Kingsley and Gladstone. 12″ – Alpena, Fife Lake, Gaylord, Midland and Benzonia. 13″ – Mancelona. 14″ – Arnold and Manistique. 15″ – Stambaugh. 18″ – Iron Mt.. 19″ – 5 miles southwest of Gaylord (the most in Lower Michigan) and Green Garden (in the U.P.).
More Upper Peninsula snow depths: 20″ Watersmeet and Champion. 21″ – Michigamme. 22″ – Ironwood and Watton. 23″ – Sawyer. 24″ – Dafter. 26″ Hancock. 27″ Kearsarge. 28″ – S. Ste. Marie. 29″ – Dollar Bay, Paulding, Greenland and Bergland Dam. 33″ Herman. 35″ – Marquette (airport) and 38″ at Munising.
It’s also been cold in the U.P. Low temperatures Saturday morning included -10 at Stonington and -2 at Marquette (airport).
Here’s a map of North American snow and ice cover. Note there is very little ice on the Great Lakes. This is due primarily due to warmer than average temperatures, but also due to the fact that has been a windy winter. Strong winds prevent ice from forming and break up ice that has formed. So far this month of February, the average wind speed in Grand Rapids has been 12.3 mph.
Note also the snow cover over most all of Washington and Oregon. You can see snow on the mountains north and east of Los Angeles and San Diego and even across the border down into the northern Baja Peninsula of Mexico.
The storm today (Monday) will bring a mix of precipitation. That will likely bring S. Lower Michigan mostly rain and central Lower Michigan a combination of snow, freezing rain and rain. There is a Winter Weather Advisory posted already for much of west Michigan and there are Gale Warnings from Monday morning thru Tuesday afternoon for Lake Michigan, where winds are likely to gust to 40 mph.
At 12:40 am this Monday, there were still 165,171 customers without power in Michigan, including 50,952 Consumers Energy customers and that includes 53.1% of Hillsdale Co., 34.0% of Lenawee Co. 27.3% of Washtenaw Co., 22.2% of Jackson Co.,19.3% of Van Buren Co., 10.7% of Branch Co., 2.1% of Kalamazoo Co. and 1.7% of Calhoun Co.
