UP Snow Totals Feb 15th &16th

Possible snow storm coming Thursday.

Snow totals are starting to fall behind last years snow totals considerably now, but there are a handful of stations that are slightly higher compared to their snow totals last year. Below in the data you will see a column in the far left where I have listed the over/under amount compared to last year up to Feb 16th.

Out of 80 snow stations that FunintheUP tracks there are 17 stations have higher snow total than last year and 53 stations are lower than last year. There are 10 stations that I have no included because they are either new stations or they haven’t updated for awhile to get an accurate number to compare.

Great Lakes Ice coverage is pretty low, the last couple days it hit an all time low.

The following list you can see the greatest average of ice coverage since 1973 to 2022 has been March 3rd-March5th.

Greatest Average Ice Concentration historically from 1973-2022 data
Mar-03     48.80% 
Mar-04     48.48% 
Mar-05     48.29%

Ice Concentration on Lake Superior the last few days
2023 Feb 14th    4.86%    			
2023 Feb 15th    4.68%    			
2023 Feb 16th    4.24%    			
2023 Feb 17th    7.97% 

So as you can see we have a long way to go to reach the average ice coverage. For comparison to last year we had 32.43% ice with the high for the season coming on March 15th with 79.55%.

This weekend temps will get back into the 30s and then it looks like snow flurries start returning Tuesday with another snow storm slated to reach the UP Thursday at least that is what the GFS and European models are showing. I am not holding my breath that we see anything to significant and frankly I am ready for warmer weather already. As much as I enjoy snowfall and doing snow reports I do enjoy an early spring as well, especially to have some time out hiking and camping before bug season, but that doesn’t happen often as the backroads are usually wet and muddy into early May when the frost starts leaving the ground. I don’t suspect it will be that long this year as we haven’t had much in the way of sub 10 degree temperatures for any prolonged periods.

We all know you don’t put away your snow brushes, shovels, winter coats, boots, or mittens away until May 1st, and you never put away your sweatshirts or fleece shirts away all year long. There was a year, maybe two years ago I was on my way to Point Abbaye for an adventure, left Houghton and it was almost 90 degrees, driving along US41 into Keweenaw Bay along Lake Superior temps dropped to 62 degrees, then as you started getting into L’Anse temps jumped up to 92 degrees. When I got out to Point Abbaye it was so hot and that also brought out the blood suckers, the stable flies, millions of them, ohh that’s another story. Anyway I do hope we see a little more snow, but I don’t care to see a lot more of it, maybe by March 31st it will all be melted?

Thanks for following the UP Snow Report, see the snow totals below.