This Michigan Town Got 29 Feet of Snow This Winter, Nearly Breaking All-Time Records
Winter is officially over (although the forecast for many areas doesn't seem to care).
In most of the country, the beginning of spring means putting away the snow boots and looking forward to warmer days. In Herman, Michigan, it means digging out from under the snow ... lots of snow.
Snowfall in the Upper Peninsula Town Was 120 Inches More Than Its Historical Average
The small Upper Peninsula town recorded 350.5 inches of snowfall this season — roughly 120 inches above its historical average and just 34 inches shy of the all-time record set during the legendary 1996-1997 winter, when 384 inches fell. Nearby Laurium wasn't far behind, recording 331.3 inches. Two locations in the U.P. exceeded 300 inches total, a feat so rare it barely registers in the historical record.
Steve Jurmu, a NOAA Cooperative Observer and tour guide in the Upper Peninsula who goes by "Yooper Steve," has spent years officially measuring snowfall in the region. He said he has never seen anything like this season.
The numbers put Michigan's ski resorts in a category of their own. Mount Bohemia recorded 332 inches on the season. Mont Ripley measured 313. Jay Peak in Vermont — typically one of the snowiest resorts in the East — picked up 347 inches, beating out every major ski resort in the American West. Kirkwood in California managed 264 inches. Alta in Utah recorded 260. In a winter that flipped nearly every expectation upside down, Northeast ski resorts outpaced their Western counterparts for one of the first times in memory.
Snow Season in the East Usurped Totals in the West
The rest of the East had a similarly unusual season. Long Island's Islip, New York recorded 68.2 inches — more than double its historical average of 29.4. Much of the Carolinas, where significant snow is rare, ended up measuring three to four times their typical seasonal totals after a major late-January storm.
The West told a completely different story. Salt Lake City, which normally sees about 47 inches of snow through a winter, recorded just 2.9. Flagstaff, Arizona came in 53 inches below its historical average. Snow cover across the western United States sat at its lowest percentage in the modern record for much of the season.
It was, by nearly every measure, one of the most lopsided winters on record — a season that buried the East while leaving the West in a snow drought, and deposited nearly three stories of snow on a small town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that still somehow didn't break its own record.