This was both nationally and locally one of the warmest winters on record, with records going back to 1895. Nationally and locally snowfall was below to well below normal. Precipitation was mostly near normal.
Winter 2023-2024 Summary
Month: March 2024
Climate Summary For February
For Southwest Michigan, this was the warmest February on record. Both the total precipitation and snowfall were well below normal. Nationally this was the 3rd warmest and 40th driest on record.
Storm Summary for March 22, 2024
There was a narrow band of 5″ to 8″ of snow From Near Holland Michigan, across the Grand Rapids area, to just north of Flint. Most of the snow fell in about 12 hours.
Winter Weather Expected Over Most of Lower Michigan Friday!
The National Weather Service offices across the western Great Lakes have all issued Winter Weather Advisories for this snowfall event that is expected to continue, even over Iowa into northern Illinois and Wisconsin into early Friday afternoon and over Lower Michigan into the early evening of Friday.
The following slides will show you the details of this event that is expected to bring up to 10″ of snow in about 12 hours to some locations in western Great Lakes. It will likely be the heaviest snowfall over most of the area since mid February.
Snow Expected over Wisconsin and Michigan late Thursday into Friday.
A narrow band of snowfall greater than 6″ in 12 hours is expected about 100 miles north of the track of the surface low. That would be near or just north of I-96 in Michigan. Snowfall rates in the heaviest snow area will be high enough to accumulate during the daytime, even in late March.
The Warmer Than Normal Weather Pattern Over the Eastern CONUS is About to End!
What Happened to Our Cold Winters over the past 10 Winters?
This is an update to what I did yesterday but with a lot more detail. I have added CONUS scale winter temperature anomalies for each of the past 10 years so you can see for yourself, in your area how the cold winter frequency has changed (there is a summary CONUS scale summary table for this now too). I have added correlation slides from CPC and Physical Science Laboratories to show there really the correlation I am suggesting is true.
What Happened to Our Cold Winters of the Past?
At least over Southwest Michigan and likely most of the northern CONUS, we have lacked cold winter (relative to 1991-2020 normal) since the winter of 2014/2015, which was the last cold winter. I would suggest warming oceans are at least part of the story.
Storm Summary for the 27th into the 28th of February, 2024
Record high temperatures ( many cases all time record highs for February) were quickly brought to an end by a strong late February cold front. There were 21 reported tornadoes, mostly EF-0 and EF-1 but there was an EF-2 near Grand Blanc in Geneses County just ahead of the cold front. Temperatures fell around 50 degrees between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon over Lower Michigan. There was 6 to 10 inches of snow in upper Michigan and locally 1 to 2 inches of rain in parts of southern Lower Michigan. Winds gusted to 69 mph over western Lake Erie.
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