Snowfall Questions and Answers
Snowfall in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There is no shortage of snowfall in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as many of you know. Yoopers take pride in the amount of snowfall they see. Yoopers also love to talk about the snowfall in the Upper Peninsula and looking back on past storms, comparing it to past years, it brings back so many memories for everyone who has been in an Upper Peninsula winter. Whether you went to school at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan Tech University in Houghton, or Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, lived in the UP for a couple years, or grew up in the UP, snowfall is a talking point for you.
Some popular questions about the snowfall in the Upper Peninsula are the following:
How much snow in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan 2019 - 2020 winter?
What are the yearly snowfall totals in Upper Peninsula of Michigan?
Average snowfall in the Upper Peninsula?
Snowfall records in the Upper Peninsula?
Daily snowfall in Upper Peninsula of Michigan?
How much snowfall in Marquette, MI
How much snow in Houghton, MI
What is the record snowfall for the Keweenaw?
What is Marquette, MI snowfall record?
What is the most snowfall ever in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan?
More and more questions are asked daily and many of them are the same questions or asked in a slightly different way about snowfall. This page will serve to help answer some of the questions you may have been seeking an answer to. These are just the most frequently asked and some of the more important questions we thought you should know the answer to.
As always you may contact me through email at snow @ funintheup.com or through Facebook messaging.
Thank you for following funintheup.com - Yooper Steve
A: Well to some people snow is a bad four-letter word. To a lot of people it is fun, mysterious, joyful, beautiful, and pure. Snow is a mineral, a form of precipitation that falls from the sky when the conditions are just right. A snowflake is made up of tiny ice crystals. The size of snowflakes vary based on the amount of ice crystals that join together, air, and moisture content, and particulates. Snow is something many enjoy and many don't like, but one thing is for certain is it pretty to look at in most cases. Sometimes you'll see huge snowflakes and sometimes small tiny ones, most of us like to see the large fluffy snowflakes falling, but the large flakes are actually a lot of snowflakes stuck together as they fall from the sky above, look closely sometime at falling snowfall that lands on your shirt or in your hand you'll see some intricacies that you can't see unless you look closely.
Q: What is the Keweenaw county snowfall record?
A: The Keweenaw County snowfall record is 390.4 inches - it fell during the winter of 1978/1979.
Q: What is the Houghton county snowfall record?
A: The Houghton county snowfall record is 362.8 inches - it fell during the winter of 2018-2019.
Q: What is Marquette county snowfall record?
A: The Marquette county snowfall record is 319.8 inches - it fell during the winter of 2001/2002.
Q: Why is snowfall measured?
A: Snowfall is important to measure for a few reasons and many more which I won't get into here on this page for times sake. Basically we measure snowfall to help compare it to previous seasons, study the impacts of snowfall, and to prepare for the up and coming winter season. Snowfall amounts can help with future weather forecasts, predicting water table levels, predicting waterflow of spring melt, and also to help analyze the impact of snow on man made structures, and many more. The data is used at the National Weather Service, Weather Channel, research agencies, agriculture companies, architecture firms, government agencies, TV stations, radio stations, weather stations, ski resorts, tourism agencies, and other places. Snow is an important part of our environment and to know how much snow has fallen helps us understand more about our earth and the weather patterns which affect our daily activities.
Q: How is snowfall measured?
A: Snowfall is measured in various ways. Automation of snowfall measurements began in the early 1970s and is currently used in various places around the world. Most snowfall measurements used by NOAA and other agencies depend on skilled and trained snow observers who love snow, they will most often measure snow with a snowboard (not recreational board), snow measurement yard stick in 10ths of an inch, with a snow cylinder, funnel, and other tools. Some snow observers don't calculate the water content and only measure the freshly fallen snow on the snowboard. It is not a requirement to measure both snowfall amounts and water content of the daily snow. There is a lot that goes into measuring snowfall, if you are interesting in learning more you can learn how to measure snowfall. The amount of snowfall that actually falls to what is actually measured by the snow observer can be influenced by wind, gravity, air pressure, physics, rain, temperature, human error, animals, and other factors. Snowfall totals are never 100% accurate of what actually has fallen because of these outside forces. We as snow observers can get pretty accurate reading of snowfall by following the procedures set forth for measuring snowfall. Most observers take measurements on a daily basis once (1x) every 24hrs, very few stations are measured more than once a day. If you measure 2x, or 4x a day your snowfall totals will be greater because you are able to mimimize the snowfall that is affected by the outside influences and the snow will have a shorter period of settling.
Q: Where do the snowfall amounts come from?
A:There are snowfall observers all around the country who take it upon themselves to measure snowfall on a daily basis. Almost all of the snowfall observers are volunteers, most of them really enjoy weather and really love snow. There are also mechanical and electronic devices that are made to measure snowfall that are used as well. Overall most measurements you see reported have came from a local volunteer in the area where the snowfall measurement came from who takes a daily snowfall measurement. Some snowfall reports will also come from National Weather Service staff, airports, city, county, or state transportation agencies, TV stations, radio stations, and ski resorts may also have people who are in charge of snowfall measurements. So when you see a snowfall measurement reported it is most likely from a volunteer who is measuring snowfall from their property somewhere.
Q: Why is there a lot of snow here, but not over here, why is there so much variation?
A:There are many reasons why there could be a foot (1ft) of snow in this city, and 5 feet (5ft) in this city. This is a question not only for the UP but applies to everywhere across the world. I'll talk about the UP since we are doing snowfall on the Upper Peninsula. One thing that affects how much snow we see here in the Upper Peninsula are two large lakes. One large lake is Lake Superior and the other Lake Michigan. The open water on both of these Great Lakes has a huge effect on the snowfall because of "lake effect snowfall". Simply put "lake effect snowfall", is when the cooler air moves across the lake it picks up moisture from the lake drawing moisture into the skies, this moisture then freezes, it also gathers particulates in the atmosphere, then proceeds to fall as snow as it moves across the land. This "Lake Effect Snow" is a huge part of an Upper Peninsula winter. As the temperatures drop and both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan start to freeze it will start to hinder the amount of "lake effect snow" that the Upper Peninsula will have, virtually cutting off a big part of of snowfall. Now you will see more often than not see areas that are more interior and at higher elevations on the east side and to the south of these cold air masses will see the most snowfall typically here in the Upper Peninsula. Also the environment along with the lakes can also play a role in how much snowfall one area gets from another. Places like interior Keweenaw county, Calumet area to Mohawk, Twin Lakes area, Painesdale area, Herman, Ishpeming, Neguanee, Munising area, areas south of Big Bay, Newberry, south of Grand Marais, and Ironwood to Bessemer will get a lot snowfall. These areas will often be in the top 10 or 15 snowiest places in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Places like Menominee, Iron Mountain, St. Ignace, or Escanaba will see less than 50-70 inches typically. This is based on the elevation, distance from Lake Superior, the movements of the winds (most often N and NW winds), and the environment. You will always here the word snowbelt, it is an area that typically sees a lot of snowfall during the winter. These snowbelt areas mentioned above are typcailly areas where bands of snow and wind most often travel through in turn dumping lots of snow on the area. Snow bands can change in various storms, that is why sometimes you will see an area that usually doesn't get much snowfall getting a lot of snowfall for a storm, it depends on the movements of the winds, the air temps, and the environmental factors during that particular system. Topography also plays a large roll in the snowfall is winds move over and around land masses, cliffs, islands, rivers, lakes, these all affect how winds move over it and how much snow an area sees for a typical snow storm or during the season. Overall this is very simple condensed bit on the snowfall.
Q: How can I become a snowfall observer? I love SNOW and weather!
A: Great! Measuring snowfall is a lot of fun and I encourage you to do so! Please contact myself at snow @ funintheup.com and or also contact the NWS office closest to you, they may be looking for COOP weather observers in your area. We will get back to you as soon as possible and tell you more about how you can become a volunteer snowfall observer.
Q:I still have a question about snow, that wasn't answered here.
A:There's a few things you can do, 1) search Google for an answer, usually you'll be able to find a good answer, or 2) send a message to snow @funintheup.com, you can also contact the NWS in Marquette or in your local area for some help as well.
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