Snowiest week of winter put December at third highest in 17 years
The snowfall totals this month are among the highest of the last 15 years, but still below what the National Weather Service defines as normal precipitation. “There’s all kinds of numbers out there, but all a normal is the mean of two extremes,” said Eric Kersey, NWS meteorologist from the regional office in Gaylord. “It took a lot of years of high and low readings to get a normal.”
Even so, it was the snowiest week of the winter season of 2004-05 with between seven to 19 inches of snowfall from Thursday to Monday. NWS spotter Wally Roeske recorded three inches of snow on Christmas Eve and another three-and-a-half inches Monday. He measures the snow every 24 hours in the morning, so the totals reflect snowfall from the day before.
THE PRESQUE ISLE COUNTY Road Commission also records snowfall amounts and had one foot of snow December 23 and, on December 26, seven inches of snow outside of the office on US-23. As of Tuesday, the total for the month was 43.75 inches, which is the highest December amount since 2000 when 61.75 inches fell. According to road commission records, it’s the third highest snowfall amount in 17 years. In 1995, 56.8 inches of snow fell in December. On the other end of the spectrum, seven inches of snow were recorded in 2001 and five in 1997. ROESKE HAS recorded 26.8 inches this month, which is the third highest amount he has recorded since he started keeping track in 1986. It doesn’t look as if there will be more snow added to the totals because rain is expected the rest of the week, which is what the NWS has been predicting would occur this season.
“This year we’ve ha
NWS MEASURES precipitation at its automated weather station at Alpena Regional Airport. “The precipitation and snowfall total are below normal and we are getting more rain than snow,” said Kersey. “As a whole, for the state, we’re still running a deficit. For snowfall, we’ve had many years with a lot more snow. Will that change? I don’t know.”
It doesn’t seem normal to people who are used to snowfall amounts well below normal in eight of the last nine December’s.