National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Overview

Low pressure trekking across the southern Great Lakes on New Year's Eve interacted with an impressive amount of Gulf moisture to produce a swath of heavy snow across much of northern Michigan. The storm posed a high impact to holiday travel and festivities across northern Michigan, including prompting the cancellation of Traverse City's Cherry Ball Drop. Isolated power outages were also reported due to the combination of some gusty winds and the heavy, wet snow.

Precipitation began as a wintry mix late Monday morning into the early afternoon as it lifted into northern Lower Michigan, producing a glaze of ice on some roadways south of M-72. As it encountered colder air farther north, the precipitation quickly transitioned to a steady moderate snowfall that continued into the evening with periods of heavy snow at times. Snowfall rates exceeded 1 inch per hour in some areas during the evening before rapidly tapering off from west to east by midnight. 

The heaviest snowfall occurred across northern Lower Michigan, generally north of M-72 and south of M-68. Road crews were still busy cleaning up the mess on New Year's Day.

Image
Radar loop of the December 31, 2018 winter storm
nws logo Media use of NWS Web News Stories is encouraged!
Please acknowledge the NWS as the source of any news information accessed from this site.
nws logo