TRAVERSE CITY — A powerful storm system is moving on from the area, but northern Michigan isn’t out of the woods yet as far as wintry weather conditions are concerned.
The wild Sunday-to-Monday storm dropped about 2 feet of heavy, wet snow on Petoskey and other parts of the far northern Lower Peninsula, dumped roughly 15 inches of snow and sleet combined around the Traverse City area, and left 0.25 inch of ice on the area roughly along the M-55 corridor, according to reports received by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Gaylord, with varying amounts of precipitation in between.
Weather service Meteorologist Faith Fredrickson on Monday described the conditions as “kind of one of those perfect storm setups for spring where we get the warm and cold air fighting each other.” Temperatures were in the 20s in the eastern Upper Peninsula, but in the southern region of the state it was 40 or even 50 degrees warmer, with the Detroit area recording a high of 71 degrees on Sunday, according to weather service data.
“That’s a good setup to get a strong system,” Fredrickson said in regard to the temperature gradient, or the rate of temperature change with respect to distance. “This was wound up pretty tight and had a lot of strong winds.”
As of Monday afternoon, more than 120,000 Michigan power customers were in the midst of outages, with the area running from around Wexford County east to Iosco County and north to Alpena County the hardest hit, according to poweroutage.us, and some of those places were among the hardest hit during last year’s destructive spring ice storm.
Midway through Monday, area school, business and government office closures were already being announced for today.
And Consumers Energy announced that it is bringing in nearly 100 additional crews in what they called an “all-hands-on-deck response to ice, snow and heavy winds that have devastated Southern and Northern Michigan over the last 24 hours.”
The 100 additional crews are joining more than 500 Michigan crews already responding to power outages.
Consumers Energy said it had shifted resources that were already pre-staged up north to the hardest hit areas localizing heavy-duty equipment to secure the electric grid, assess damage and continue restoration.
The Michigan State Police Seventh District on Monday reported on its X feed there were trees down and impassable roads in the Alpena and Gaylord post areas as well as Cheboygan County, and Roscommon County had issued a local state of emergency while nearly 90% of the county was without power.
The five-county Grand Traverse area, comparatively, was less affected, with more than 500 customers without power as of Monday afternoon, most of them Great Lakes Energy customers in Kalkaska County.
The utility’s outage map showed estimated power restoration times for most were late Monday night.
Traverse City Area Public Schools had been closed because of inclement weather Friday and Monday, and announced it also will be closed today as residents continue to dig out.
Fredrickson also reminded those residents to keep a distance from downed power lines, and take breaks when shoveling heavier snow and sleet that can “cause some extra exertion people might not be used to.”
“You don’t just have to plow through in one shot,” Fredrickson said.
Cold air is settling into the region behind the storm, leading to potentially dangerous conditions for those who may still be without power and a “struggle to melt” ice-covered surfaces, the National Weather Service Gaylord office reported Monday.
Temperatures in Traverse City will stay in the teens for the vast majority of the day today and wind chills will be around zero and the single digits most of the day, with other parts of the area even colder. More blowing and drifting snow will create potentially hazardous travel conditions and winds will remain gusty — as fast as about 40 mph — but gradually weaken throughout the day. The nighttime low will be around 10 degrees.
Conditions look set to ease up a bit more Wednesday, with high temperatures in the mid-30s and a less-than 50% chance of snow showers. Temperatures should break into the 40s on Thursday and partly sunny skies are forecasted.