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Cherry Orchard ... spring snow, photo by Ken Scott

The National Weather Service noted that the high temperature yesterday at the Otsego County Airport in Gaylord only reached 35 degrees - a new record for the coldest high temperature for the date that crushed the previous record of 44 degrees from 2003. It was also the coldest high temperature ever recorded in the month of May for Gaylord. They notched a record snowfall of 2 inches as well.

At at balmy 42 degrees, we weren't quite as cold as the center of the state. We did record a low of 27 degrees overnight, just 4 degrees off the 1976 record so stay tuned for a report on the effects. Tart cherries were just getting ready to pop - here's hoping that still happens!

View Ken's photo on black and see more in his massive Leelanau slideshow.

The Suttons Bay Chamber of Commerce shared this photo by Tom Kelly of the Inland Seas Education Association.

The photo shows record high water from 1986. Almost 30 years later we're looking at record low water levels on Lake Michigan that are just 2" above the all-time low from December 1948. Traverse City based AP writer John Flesher writes that As Great Lakes plummet, towns try to save harbors:

The Great Lakes, the world's biggest freshwater system, are shrinking because of drought and rising temperatures, a trend that accelerated with this year's almost snowless winter and scorching summer. Water levels have fallen to near-record lows on Lakes Michigan and Huron, while Erie, Ontario and Superior are below their historical averages.

The decline is causing heavy economic losses, with cargo freighters forced to lighten their loads, marinas too shallow for pleasure boats and weeds sprouting on exposed bottomlands, chasing away swimmers and sunbathers.

Some of the greatest suffering is in small tourist towns that lack the economic diversity of bigger port cities. Yet they are last in line for federal money to deepen channels and repair infrastructure to support the boating traffic that keeps them afloat.

Read on for more including how a federal budget crunch is making matters worse.

Forecast Radar Cameras Photos

For the latest Leelanau & Traverse City weather you can use the resources on this page.

Coming Events

Check the Leelanau Calendar for events.  You can click that link to add your Leelanau & Traverse City events to the calendar for FREE! Not only will they be distributed with our weekly newsletter, but they may be a featured story on Leelanau.com!

More Weather Resources

Please also check the less pessimistic Weather.com forecast)

Weather Underground is just about as old as the internet (the first net weather service) and is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Sometimes the above banner will show personal weather system data from Leelanau Coffee in Glen Arbor, sometimes from Leland and sometimes it comes from a vineyard on Old Mission (it tells you which in the top left of the page it links to).

Buoy 45002 in Lake Michigan is located halfway between North Manitou Island and Washington Island in Lake Michigan. It provides wind and wave data. Also check out Michigan Sea Grant Coastwatch for water temps (the "early evening" images in their archive will give you a better idea of actual temps during peaks swimming hours ... in seasons where you might actually want to swim!).

We featured this on Michigan in Pictures this morning...

Beautiful Blossoms 5320-11 by StacyN - MichiganMoments

Cherry blossoms are out a full month early on the Leelanau Peninsula, and "Summer in March" appears to have claimed much of Northern Michigan's 2012 tart cherry crop. Interlochen Public Radio reports:

A spring freeze last week across Northwest Michigan killed more than half of the buds on tart cherry trees. Industry officials estimate the loss for the region in the 50 to 70 percent range. Trees can produce a decent crop if a third of the buds survive. But several factors, including another freeze this spring, could still damage more of the crop before harvest.

Leelanau County saw the heaviest loss, estimated at as high as 90 percent of sour cherries killed in many orchards. But other fruit trees, like apple and sweet cherries, are in decent shape.

Other county crops like apples and sweet cherries appear to be in better shape, but with a hard frost out there this morning, it's probably not over yet.

Check this out bigger and in Stacy's Spring slideshow.

The majority of our snow comes from lake effect. We don’t usually see that heavy cement-mixer type of snow."
~ Gaylord-based National Weather Service meteorologist John Boris

As Leelanau continues to dig out from a MAJOR winter storm, we thought we would post some of the highlights (or is that low points) of this very disruptive storm. TV 9&10 meteorologist Tom O'Hare explains: (more...)

"I like to take trips like this, to get out of the rut of ordinary life and test myself. I don't have a lot of kayaking experience, but I like getting out and seeing how far I can go."
~Steve Snyder

Hello boys and girls, today we have the story of The Very Lucky Kayaker.

Once upon a time there was a man named Steve Snyder, who paddled from Glen Haven nine miles to South Manitou Island in a brand new kayak to camp. He ran into trouble two miles into his return trip when the spray skirt came off. With no wetsuit and taking on water, he was, as Jim Stamm pointed out when he emailed it over, incredibly lucky to survive.

He was lifted off the island by a Coast Guard Helicopter, hopefully wiser. mLive closes their article:

Michigan paddlers are fortunate. There are two excellent multiday sea kayaking symposiums every year. A symposium is slated May 25-28 in Muskegon County by the West Michigan Coastal Kayakers Association. See wmcka.org for details. The other is the Great Lakes Sea Kayaking Symposium, July 18-22, in Grand Marais. See downwindsports.com/glsks for more details.

If you are new to kayaking, consider attending. You won’t be sorry — and it could save your life.

We'll close ours by sharing the words of northern Michigan's own Song of the Lakes:

These are not lakes, these are the world's eighth seas, and her bottoms are littered with the wreckage of over 8,000 ships.

Try not to join them, OK? Don't treat Lake Michigan like a lake, she's a whole lot bigger than almost any lake in the world and demands your respect.

Photo credit: Winter Swirls on Sleeping Bear Point by Mark Lindsay

The Leelanau Enterprise reports that in addition to making it a rough winter for those who depend on snow for winter sports, the lack of snow this winter is proving troubling for wine grape growers. They talked with Charlie Edson:

Edson, of Bel Lago Vineyards & Winery north of Cedar, has more than 100 grape varietals planted on 32 acres in Centerville Township that are susceptible to freezing without snow cover.

“I don’t know how hardy the vines are. I’m guessing not as hardy as we would like,” he said.
As of Wednesday, 43 inches of snow had been recorded at the Road Commission garage in Suttons Bay, about half the 85 inches from a year ago at the same point of winter. Adding insult to injury is that any snow that has come has melted away due to unseasonably warm temperatures. On Friday, the mercury broke 50 degrees at the Enterprise weather station in Lake Leelanau. A high of 60 was recorded in the past week at the Road Commission garage in Maple City.

Those readings are a concern for grape growers throughout the region.

“It’s a problem for us,” said Erwin “Duke” Elsner, Michigan State University small fruit production & viticulture specialist based in Traverse City. “Snow is a primary source of insulation providing up to 10 degrees of protection. If it gets down to minus 5, the temperature around the vine can be 5 above.”

While lack of snow is also a concern for local small fruit trees, it is less concerning than for grapevines. Elsner explained that tree trunks comprised of sturdy tissue can survive lower temperatures.

Read on for more!

Photo credit: Vineyard ... on the Eve of Spring by Ken Scott

This photo of the Northern Lights over Fishtown was taken by Ken Scott in October of 2011. Today on Absolute Michigan we posted a feature about a solar flare that may bring northern lights to Leelanau's skies tonight (and potentially over the next few days):

NASA's Space Weather site is the place to go for Aurora Borealis forecasting as they help make sense of the data the space agency receives about solar flares and their impact on earth's atmosphere. Yesterday they gave Northern Lights watchers a lot of hope with this news:

This morning, Jan. 23rd around 0359 UT, big sunspot 1402 erupted, producing a long-duration M9-class solar flare. The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being an X-flare, the most powerful kind. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash (shown right or in short movie right here)

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft detected a CME rapidly emerging from the blast site: movie. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the leading edge of the CME will reach Earth on Jan. 24 at 14:18UT (+/- 7 hours).

That means it's hitting the Earth 11 AM - 6 PM EST, but this level of intensity makes the Northern Lights a real possibility for the next couple of days so definitely LOOK UP tonight and tomorrow if there's any break in the clouds! If the northern lights hit, our Northern Lights Log will light up with reports. You can also learn a lot more about the Northern Lights at Michigan in Pictures and also at aurora borealis on Leelanau.com!

Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
~Old Farmer’s Almanac

Speaking of wolves and January, last month the US Fish & Wildlife Service removed wolves in the western Great Lakes region from the federal endangered species list. Wolves are now managed by states in the region and the ruling takes effect on Friday, January, 2012. Read the release from the Michigan DNR about wolf de-listing.

Photo credit: Moon over Lake Leelanau by Missy Luick (a February full moon...)

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