Post by Ardbeg... innit on Jan 13, 2007 8:37:32 GMT -6
Looks like the Illinois Tourism Bureau has set up an early warning network to keep metro Chicago snowmobilers from wasting their time/money travelling up here. Thats OK, they can stay home, but please do send the money.
Source
Source
HOUGHTON, Mich. -- In the land of big snow, where college students jump harmlessly out of third-story dormitory windows into snow banks, and old-timers call the seasons June, July and winter, the longest season of the year sure ain't what it used to be.
Snow that was dependable as a sunrise and last year tallied higher than 20 feet is now being rationed in the city of Houghton, which this week cancelled a downtown inner tube race--called the Yooper Luge--to save snow for the annual winter carnival, the biggest tourist attraction of the year.
Barely a few inches cover the ground now, and snow rationing has led to importing. Trucks are hauling in snow from outside the city and onto the campus of Michigan Tech University, where the late January carnival is to be held.
"And we're struggling to find it," said Houghton's city manager, Scott MacInnes. "It's scary. There's not a lot of it."
Mt. Bohemia, a popular ski slope about 40 miles north of here, has been closed for weeks. Restaurants that depend on ski traffic are shuttered, snowmobile rentals have gone into the tank and the familiar buzz and roar of snowmobiles has gone eerily silent. As the temperatures climbed toward 40 degrees Thursday, people openly wished for a 2-foot dump.
"Like right now," MacInnes said.
Partisans on one side of the global-warming debate could use the Keweenaw Peninsula's winter as exhibit A in their claim that humans have triggered a warming trend. They would certainly get an argument from those who say one year does not make a trend.
But things are ch-ch-changing in one of the snowiest parts of the eastern United States, according to weather data and scientists. The winter trend in Michigan has been taking shape since the 1980s, according to state climatologist Jeff Andresen--warmer winters, more volatility in temperatures, longer growing seasons, less ice on lakes, higher minimum temperatures at night and a ch-ch-change in the frost schedule. The first one comes later and the last one comes earlier.
Pelicans in Michigan?
Unusual birds sightings have been reported in the Upper Peninsula--pelicans and magpies, for instance. It rained heavily on New Year's Eve, which is practically unheard of. So far in this decade, the average January temperature in the Houghton area has risen almost 7 degrees since the 1970s. It's up almost 8 degrees in Marquette over the same time period. Lake Superior's water level is at a record low.
And the chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Marquette played golf a few days before Christmas.
"There's no question that winters are milder than in the past," Andresen said.
All of this has shaken the predictability of weather in this region of the country that depends on skiing, snowmobiling and ice fishing to drive the winter economy. Jim Aho has run a snowmobile rental shop in neighboring Hancock since the 1970s. His shop is crammed with new jackets, gloves, helmets and other gear--that aren't selling.
"It's terrible," Aho said.
Dawn Greene, who works at a local bank and as a hostess at a downtown restaurant, said she saw crocuses sprout last week. David Menominee tends a bar with a black bear's head mounted to the wall and keeps watch over a closed restaurant near Mt. Bohemia. Drooping dollar bills are tacked to the knotty pine ceiling. None are recent additions.
"This is survival of the fittest time," said Menominee, who noted some snowmobilers are so desperate for snow that they bring their vehicles and ride in the mud.
Earlier this month the city of Houghton--with help from volunteers--manufactured and trucked in snow for Olympic cross-country ski time trials. The paucity of snow in areas to the east has raised concerns about major cross-country ski and snowmobile races.
`We need a big one' Editted to add: Well, maybe thats our problem... dont we all
In Marquette, which five years ago set a snowfall record of 319 inches, the ground is brown only two weeks before a popular tourist event, a 50-kilometer cross-country ski race.
John Anderton, a geography professor at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, worries that weather conditions common in south central Michigan will eventually become the norm in much of the UP. Only time will tell.
Anderton is also worried about the cross-country race because he'll be in it--if there's snow. Lakes have already swallowed up ice-fishing shanties, and Anderton isn't sure about the ponds he and other racers will have to cross.
Last year was one of the warmest in UP history, and while this winter is an anomaly, Andresen said there is nothing on the horizon to suggest the trend is ending. Temperatures from 1900 through the 1930s were warm, he said. From the 1940s through the 1970s there was a cooling trend.
The warming that began in the 1980s, causing annual seasonal warm-ups that begin 7 to 10 days earlier than normal, "shows no sign of stopping," Andresen said.
Houghton's had only about 50 inches or so, and nearly all of it has been washed away by rain or high temperatures.
Normally the area would have close to 200 inches by now. But nobody is quite sure what normal is anymore.
"A few inches is nothing up here," said MacInnes, Houghton's city manager. "We need a big one, and fast."
Snow that was dependable as a sunrise and last year tallied higher than 20 feet is now being rationed in the city of Houghton, which this week cancelled a downtown inner tube race--called the Yooper Luge--to save snow for the annual winter carnival, the biggest tourist attraction of the year.
Barely a few inches cover the ground now, and snow rationing has led to importing. Trucks are hauling in snow from outside the city and onto the campus of Michigan Tech University, where the late January carnival is to be held.
"And we're struggling to find it," said Houghton's city manager, Scott MacInnes. "It's scary. There's not a lot of it."
Mt. Bohemia, a popular ski slope about 40 miles north of here, has been closed for weeks. Restaurants that depend on ski traffic are shuttered, snowmobile rentals have gone into the tank and the familiar buzz and roar of snowmobiles has gone eerily silent. As the temperatures climbed toward 40 degrees Thursday, people openly wished for a 2-foot dump.
"Like right now," MacInnes said.
Partisans on one side of the global-warming debate could use the Keweenaw Peninsula's winter as exhibit A in their claim that humans have triggered a warming trend. They would certainly get an argument from those who say one year does not make a trend.
But things are ch-ch-changing in one of the snowiest parts of the eastern United States, according to weather data and scientists. The winter trend in Michigan has been taking shape since the 1980s, according to state climatologist Jeff Andresen--warmer winters, more volatility in temperatures, longer growing seasons, less ice on lakes, higher minimum temperatures at night and a ch-ch-change in the frost schedule. The first one comes later and the last one comes earlier.
Pelicans in Michigan?
Unusual birds sightings have been reported in the Upper Peninsula--pelicans and magpies, for instance. It rained heavily on New Year's Eve, which is practically unheard of. So far in this decade, the average January temperature in the Houghton area has risen almost 7 degrees since the 1970s. It's up almost 8 degrees in Marquette over the same time period. Lake Superior's water level is at a record low.
And the chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Marquette played golf a few days before Christmas.
"There's no question that winters are milder than in the past," Andresen said.
All of this has shaken the predictability of weather in this region of the country that depends on skiing, snowmobiling and ice fishing to drive the winter economy. Jim Aho has run a snowmobile rental shop in neighboring Hancock since the 1970s. His shop is crammed with new jackets, gloves, helmets and other gear--that aren't selling.
"It's terrible," Aho said.
Dawn Greene, who works at a local bank and as a hostess at a downtown restaurant, said she saw crocuses sprout last week. David Menominee tends a bar with a black bear's head mounted to the wall and keeps watch over a closed restaurant near Mt. Bohemia. Drooping dollar bills are tacked to the knotty pine ceiling. None are recent additions.
"This is survival of the fittest time," said Menominee, who noted some snowmobilers are so desperate for snow that they bring their vehicles and ride in the mud.
Earlier this month the city of Houghton--with help from volunteers--manufactured and trucked in snow for Olympic cross-country ski time trials. The paucity of snow in areas to the east has raised concerns about major cross-country ski and snowmobile races.
`We need a big one' Editted to add: Well, maybe thats our problem... dont we all
In Marquette, which five years ago set a snowfall record of 319 inches, the ground is brown only two weeks before a popular tourist event, a 50-kilometer cross-country ski race.
John Anderton, a geography professor at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, worries that weather conditions common in south central Michigan will eventually become the norm in much of the UP. Only time will tell.
Anderton is also worried about the cross-country race because he'll be in it--if there's snow. Lakes have already swallowed up ice-fishing shanties, and Anderton isn't sure about the ponds he and other racers will have to cross.
Last year was one of the warmest in UP history, and while this winter is an anomaly, Andresen said there is nothing on the horizon to suggest the trend is ending. Temperatures from 1900 through the 1930s were warm, he said. From the 1940s through the 1970s there was a cooling trend.
The warming that began in the 1980s, causing annual seasonal warm-ups that begin 7 to 10 days earlier than normal, "shows no sign of stopping," Andresen said.
Houghton's had only about 50 inches or so, and nearly all of it has been washed away by rain or high temperatures.
Normally the area would have close to 200 inches by now. But nobody is quite sure what normal is anymore.
"A few inches is nothing up here," said MacInnes, Houghton's city manager. "We need a big one, and fast."
