Pre-Christmas Storm Plains/MW/GL 12/21-12/22

[jaster220]

Had work off yesterday, so I just stayed in all day and listened to the wind howling. Was sent on a cross-town errand this afternoon though. Was actually snowing a bit and windy with bitter WC's like my ears wanted to be frost-bitten. Found my car surrounded by a drift 14" deep which really caught me off guard. I think it grew with some overnight streamer off Lk. Michigan. Had brief ground blizzard conditions on my little trek and saw plenty of drifts. Yeah, here in the Metro - not expected tbh. Going to up my grade for this event, especially with the timing at Christmas. Had snow been the 5" they originally had on the DTX maps, this would've been a MUCH bigger deal around here. 

[westMJim]

Where Grand Rapids stands as of approach 6PM on Christmas Eve. Grand Rapids officially had 7.5′′ of new snow Friday, with a two-day total of 11.3“. The current snow depth at GRR is now at 14” For the month, Grand Rapids is up to 26.1″ and for the season we’re at 54.1″ Other new snow totals: Holland 12.4″, Paw Paw 11.0″, Grandville 9.7″, East G.R. 8.9″ (11″ on the ground), Fennville 8.5″, Jenison 8″ (with a 6-7 foot drift, and just 3″ near Battle Creek. Drifts are 2 feet high in the Muskegon and Holland areas.

[WinterSquall23]

3 hours ago, jaster220 said:

Had work off yesterday, so I just stayed in all day and listened to the wind howling. Was sent on a cross-town errand this afternoon though. Was actually snowing a bit and windy with bitter WC's like my ears wanted to be frost-bitten. Found my car surrounded by a drift 14" deep which really caught me off guard. I think it grew with some overnight streamer off Lk. Michigan. Had brief ground blizzard conditions on my little trek and saw plenty of drifts. Yeah, here in the Metro - not expected tbh. Going to up my grade for this event, especially with the timing at Christmas. Had snow been the 5" they originally had on the DTX maps, this would've been a MUCH bigger deal around here. 

@jaster220 lake band sagging south heading toward your area. Little late but better late than never! Think I picked up 1/2 inch so far.  This lake band has some legs. Most snow I have seen fall throughout this winter storm. Hopefully it holds together for you. 

[jaster220]

1 hour ago, Ferndale_man said:

@jaster220 lake band sagging south heading toward your area. Little late but better late than never! Think I picked up 1/2 inch so far.  This lake band has some legs. Most snow I have seen fall throughout this winter storm. Hopefully it holds together for you. 

Thx. Some flakes flying out there now. As I said earlier, kudo points for this system giving us that on Christmas Eve. Hoping it holds together for at least another dusting or coating to maybe fill-in more of the grass blades. NAM showed this 24 hrs ago. NAM 12k seems to do well for this region inside a 48 hr window. Merry Christmas!

[WinterSquall23]

1 hour ago, jaster220 said:

Thx. Some flakes flying out there now. As I said earlier, kudo points for this system giving us that on Christmas Eve. Hoping it holds together for at least another dusting or coating to maybe fill-in more of the grass blades. NAM showed this 24 hrs ago. NAM 12k seems to do well for this region inside a 48 hr window. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I think it is, I picked up an inch so far maybe we will get more. Grass is covered! Flakes are getting bigger !  Snow on Christmas Eve with flakes flying! Awesome! 

[Tom]

8 hours ago, Ferndale_man said:

Merry Christmas! I think it is, I picked up an inch so far maybe we will get more. Grass is covered! Flakes are getting bigger !  Snow on Christmas Eve with flakes flying! Awesome! 

#winning...nothing more festive than big fatties flying on Christmas Eve!  Congrats!

[westMJim]

Merry Christmas! And this year is a white Christmas for sure. I have not gone outside to take any snow depth measurements, but I can tell you looking out the windows there is a lot of snow on the ground out this morning. 2022 will be one of the top snow depths in Grand Rapids history. The record snow depth at Grand Rapids for any Christmas morning is 22” in 1951 in 2nd place is 16” in 2000 in 3rd place was 2008 with 13. As of yesterday Grand Rapids has 14” reported at GRR. Yesterday’s 10.5” of snowfall at Grand Rapids sets a new record for any December 24th the old record was 7.5” in 1993.

[Stacsh]

Off and on light snow continues from the lake effect portion of this.  It is light and fluffy.  About a half inch falls every few hours or so.  

[Ottawa CO, MI]

2 hours ago, westMJim said:

Merry Christmas! And this year is a white Christmas for sure. I have not gone outside to take any snow depth measurements, but I can tell you looking out the windows there is a lot of snow on the ground out this morning. 2022 will be one of the top snow depths in Grand Rapids history. The record snow depth at Grand Rapids for any Christmas morning is 22” in 1951 in 2nd place is 16” in 2000 in 3rd place was 2008 with 13. As of yesterday Grand Rapids has 14” reported at GRR. Yesterday’s 10.5” of snowfall at Grand Rapids sets a new record for any December 24th the old record was 7.5” in 1993.

It was a nice snowstorm for sure. We have about 20 inches on the ground here in Ottawa County. The aftermath is not even close to what the local TV stations were forecasting Thursday and its not close to the 1978 aftermath. All in all, a nice storm.....too bad we will have green grass in 6 days...

[westMJim]

Used the snowblower to clear the driveway and as the snow plow has went by had to use the shovel to clear the end of the driveway. Also use the roof rake and pulled down some of the snow along the edge of the roof. There is a lot of snow on the east side of the house and it even hung over the edge. I also took some snow depth measurements and I have between 16 and 18.5" of snow on the ground. At the current time there is some light snow falling and it is 18 here at my house. This will be the last of my reports in this thread. Will use the December one until next week 

[Tom]

1 hour ago, westMJim said:

Used the snowblower to clear the driveway and as the snow plow has went by had to use the shovel to clear the end of the driveway. Also use the roof rake and pulled down some of the snow along the edge of the roof. There is a lot of snow on the east side of the house and it even hung over the edge. I also took some snow depth measurements and I have between 16 and 18.5" of snow on the ground. At the current time there is some light snow falling and it is 18 here at my house. This will be the last of my reports in this thread. Will use the December one until next week 

Take some pics!  I’m sure the landscape and scenery  looks wonderful.

[Tom]

The Yoopers and N MI got hit pretty darn hard over the past few days...

[Up_north_MI]

38 minutes ago, Tom said:

The Yoopers and N MI got hit pretty darn hard over the past few days...

Yup we have a lot of snow up here in northern lower MI, seems like it’s been snowing for days from the lake which isn’t all that unusual for this time of year around here but the wind has been unusually strong with this storm. We only have about a foot of snow on the ground here but just a few miles north of us the snow gets quite a bit deeper. The winds stayed more westerly then north westerly during the past few days which kept most of the heavier lake effect bands just north of our place here on the north side of Higgins lake. Sounds like a decent warm up is on the way later this week which again is pretty common to get a decent January thaw for a week of so before hopefully more colder temperatures return so the lakes can start to freeze up solid enough for ice fishing which is huge up here usually January through March.

[jaster220]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

The Yoopers and N MI got hit pretty darn hard over the past few days...

Impressive to me on that list is Rudyard and Dafter. My Ex's family came from there and that's dairy cattle country, not normally in the snow-belt. The Soo will get clobbered once in a while. The strong winds really carried the snow further inland obviously with this one. One of those reporters around Gaylord finished with 36.7"! 

[Jarod]

I'm going to have to get up to Sleeping Bear Dunes in the next couple of days before all the snow starts melting. Should be some decent snowshoeing, unless they didn't get enough snow that close to the lake ... or it all blew away.

 

Anyone know of some other good places to go snowshoeing up there?

 

[Stacsh]

 

 

[OmahaSnowFan]

Last I heard, 25 deaths in and around Buffalo and almost 50 across the country.

Here’s a picture of a street in Buffalo with all the stranded cars.

[jaster220]

12 hours ago, Stacsh said:

 

 

Similar, but quite different storms actually with '78 being mostly system snow, and this mostly LES. Really hard to believe '78 produced only 5 hrs of low vis. Too bad this wasn't more widespread outside LES belts so we would've had a another Superstorm on our historical storms list. Will mostly be remembered for the timing at Christmas. 

[Andie]

13 hours ago, Stacsh said:

 

 

There WAS more snow on the ground and temps had been quite cold prior to the blizzard.  It was a miserable time overall.