What’s the Winter Forecast?

Coming off a turbulent year of weather, experts look at winter conditions for 2024-25

We very nearly had a no-snow November in northern Michigan, with Thanksgiving-week storms arriving in the region.

But until that point, things were…not so chill. The National Weather Service in Gaylord charts historical average first accumulating snow dates—Oct. 26 for Gaylord, Nov. 9 for Traverse City, Nov. 13 for Petoskey—which all went by without much in the sky and nothing on the ground.

Now, as of press time, Gaylord has gotten more than 80 inches of snow, Traverse City 41, and Petoskey 39, all well above the average in a season to date.

Wild weather throughout 2024 is expected to continue this winter, with early signals suggesting conditions could be similar to a 2023 season that provided the highest average temperatures on record for most areas across the region.

“The warmth definitely carried through the year,” says Harold Dippman, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Gaylord. “It was above normal across the region.”

Weather data shows the region was above normal in more ways than one.

“Across northern Michigan, [2023-24] was the warmest winter on record,” Dippman says, with average temperatures in places like Pellston and Traverse City two degrees above average, while Gaylord was 3.5 degrees above the second warmest winter.

Spring and Summer

“Obviously there was a big lack of snowfall,” Dippman says of 2023-24, but that changed in March, when several areas saw the heaviest precipitation since the beginning of reliable records.

The wet weather, with severe thunderstorms in late April, meant “most places with the exception of Traverse City itself ended [meteorological spring through May] with above average rainfall,” Dippman says.

All sites across northern Michigan monitored by the National Weather Service had at least their six warmest spring on record, as well.

Spring “started wet and did not let up until August,” he said, though “we eventually did dry up.”
Most locations across northern Michigan saw both their highest and lowest temperatures for June in the same week, when the thermometer dipped into the mid 30s on June 11, before reaching the mid 90s just six days later.

From July through August, “several places saw their top 20 warmest summer on record,” Dippman says, which came with an odd dynamic of little precipitation, but plenty of humidity.
“Despite it being dry, it was warm and humid,” he says.

Temperatures in Traverse City reached 97 degrees on Aug. 26, the “warmest August day in 23 years,” Dippman says, and the trend continued into the fall.

Fall

“The recurring theme [for fall] has been very dry, in some cases September was top five driest on record,” he says.

Gaylord had the second driest September since 1951, while it was the fourth driest in Traverse City since 1897. The same month was the warmest on record in Gaylord by nearly 7 degrees, while it was the second warmest in Pellston since 1948 and third warmest in Traverse City.

“The underlying theme is it’s been a warm year and there’s been periods where it was very dry and periods where it’s been very wet,” Dippman says.

The warm and dry fall went into October, which also registered as a top 10 warmest October for Alpena, Gaylord, Pellston, and Traverse City.

“It’s been just a tale of stagnant patterns this year,” Dippman says. “October was very dry most places, until Oct. 29 when we got a more active pattern. For most places, October is typically the wettest calendar month of the year,” he adds.

Winter

In November, we still had “above-normal temperatures,” Dippman says, augmented by “a wetter pattern induced by La Niña, which translates into moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.”

That moisture can fall as rain, or snow, depending on whether it collides with colder air from Canada and the Arctic, though forecasters aren’t expecting a strong intrusion of cold air any time soon.

“At this time, there’s a lot of uncertainty … about whether we will get into deeper colder air,” he says. “It’s going to be a little bit before we see consistent winter conditions in Michigan. There’s just a lot of indications the core of the coldest air is basically stuck over Alaska and not getting dissipated and moving over the Great Lakes,” Dippman says.

After the Thanksgiving and early December storms, temperatures rose again to the mid-40s before setting into the upper-30s this past week, with the warmer temps and rainfall threatening the integrity of the accumulated snow.

“It’s still going to get colder, but it’s going to be more [of a question of] can we keep snow pack,” he says. “It’s definitely going to, at least the start, have similarities to recent winters.”

Agriculture Impacts

While Michigan’s unpredictable weather in 2024 largely tracks with the broader U.S., which had the second warmest January-October on record, it has had a variety of impacts in northwest Michigan, both good and bad.

Michigan State University Extension Specialist Nikki Rothwell says the warm 2023-24 winter, coupled with a very wet spring, created optimum conditions for insect and disease outbreaks, such as American brown rot, a fungal disease that devastated the region’s cherry crops, as well as cherry leaf spot.

“Disease was about impossible to control with cherries this year,” she says, adding losses with sweet cherries was “probably over 75 percent.”

Other issues for cherries and apples stemmed from trees transitioning to winter during the dry fall, and increasing populations of deer, rabbits, and voles tied to the mild wither that became a “big problem in orchards,” Rothwell says.

“There isn’t really anything anyone can do,” she says, noting the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved a declaration of disaster for cherries in Antrim, Grand Traverse, and Leelanau counties that will allow farmers to secure federal assistance to mitigate the damages.

The region’s hot and dry weather later in the year, however, was a boon for winemakers, producing natural sugar levels that will result in “some of the best vintage we’ve seen in years,” Rothwell says. “I’ve been hearing from wine makers that they’re really happy.”

Water Level Changes

Hot and dry weather has also put the water level on lakes Michigan and Huron on a downward trajectory, dropping 8 inches from Nov 15, 2023, accelerated by a 4-inch drop from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15, says Heather Smith, Grand Traverse Bay Waterkeeper with The Watershed Center.

The lakes are now slightly below the long-term average, she says, and “the projection is we’re going to drop another 2 inches in the next month.”

“People should expect to get even lower water levels this year,” Smith says, though the level remains close to the historical average. “The big concern is there are extremes in Great Lakes water levels and those are the most difficult to deal with,” she adds.

The Watershed Center is working on coastal resiliency planning for those extremes to come more often, with higher highs and lower lows, and the problems the swings create for wildlife habitat, erosion, recreation, boating, and other issues.

Cold-Weather Activities

In places like Gaylord, locals are already adapting to the trends, shifting from a heavy focus on snowmobiling to other outdoor pursuits that involve less snow, with fewer barriers to entry.

“The lack of snowfall for us can have a very big impact on travel tourism,” says Paul Beachnau, executive director of the Gaylord Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. “For the most part, the ski resorts are in pretty good shape because all of them have ramped up snowmaking.”

Meanwhile snowmobiling, which requires significantly more snow, “has seen a decline” in recent years, with what is typically a 14-weekend season reduced to just three with enough snow in 2023-24, Beachnau says.

While that shift has had a significant impact on restaurants, hotels, gas stations, repair shops, and other area businesses that have relied on the industry for decades, it’s also creating new opportunities to promote tourism that are significantly cheaper and more accessible to a broader demographic.

“What we’ve been doing is … we pivoted into travel and tourism things you could do,” Beachnau says. “You can still get out and go winter rafting. You can still go out and hike in the woods.”

Across the board, “There’s a focus on skiing, tubing, cross-country skiing,” he says. “One of our jobs has been some good education on getting out in the winter.”

Good news for Gaylord—they still have plenty of snow.

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