We’ve heard for years that the Upper Great Lakes area, where I live, could be a “climate haven”, based on plentiful water supplies, and purportedly, milder weather extremes.
But now, two years in a row, late season ice storms have battered northern Michigan, disrupting electric transmission, and heavily damaging trees and forests, leaving behind broken trees, and trash on the forest floor, that could set the stage for fires when the hotter weather arrives.
I was recently in Gaylord, near the northern tip of Michigan’s mitten, to MC a remembrance of last year’s storm, where we heard from more than a dozen survivors who told stories of isolation and survival when power went down for weeks over a huge area of both peninsulas.
This past weekend’s storm dumped 2 to 4 feet of snow across the region, where the lakes which would historically be iced over at this time of year, were open water, contributing to a “lake effect” amplification.
Below, Detroit station interview with a Michigan DNR forester on the impacts of last year’s storm.
Storm chaser update from yesterday on tree damage in the area.