A potentially crippling early spring storm is set to arrive Tuesday night into the day Wednesday bringing dangerous winter weather conditions back to Northern Michigan. Although the calendar has switched to spring, Mother Nature has not, and we will feel the impact of this midweek.
An initial, early look at this storm system shows some light rain or even freezing drizzle arriving as early as late Tuesday afternoon along/south of highway M-55. This should not have too much of an impact on travel. It is around midnight Tuesday night into Wednesday when a surge of moisture will channel into the region ahead of this system leading to the development of widespread heavy precipitation for Northern and Central Lower Michigan. The exact setup of who gets the heaviest snow, and who will see freezing rain/sleet is still a bit uncertain, as many of those details are finite and will come together as the system approaches. However, the analysis of this storm indicates that some spots such as Manistee/Ludington along the M-55 corridor south could deal with freezing rain/icing concerns with a narrow area of up to a half inch of ice possible there. That kind of icing can bring down trees limbs and create power outages not to mention the inability to travel.
Further north, it will be a bit colder leading to primarily snow. At this point, it appears locations in-between highway M-68 and highway M-72 in Lower Michigan will see the heaviest snow potential with Gaylord/Grayling/Petoskey/Alpena/Bellaire/Charlevoix and Traverse City all looking at upwards of 10-12” of snow potentially by midday Wednesday. The heaviest amounts with this entire storm will be in the U.P. near Iron Mountain where 20” of snow could fall there. The Eastern U.P./Straits will see a lot less snow based on the current projected track. Downstate cities such as Detroit and Grand Rapids will deal with plain rain.
The key to this is preparation, and while some of the details, snow/ice amounts may change some as the system approaches, this storm will greatly impact travel over the entire 7&4 viewing area.
Stay tuned to the 7&4 Storm Team for the very latest updates.
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