Winter Storm — Leelanau, Michigan

2024-12-11 to 2024-12-13 · Leelanau, Michigan

Event narrative

A foot of snow fell between 1600EST on the 11th and 1300EST on the 12th near Suttons Bay. Cooperative observer near Maple City reported 7.0 inches by the evening on the 11th, along with gusty winds.

Wider weather episode

Strong upper level troughing digging into the region brought another round of Arctic air overtop anomalously warm lake temperatures for mid-December, resulting in another round of impressive lake enhanced snowfall totals across the region. Lighter background flow initially resulted in development of disorganized lake effect/enhanced snow bands, including a couple mesolows...one which crossed northern Lower Michigan during the day on the 11th, and another that developed over the UP along lake aggregate troughing on the 11th, which was ejected SE into the morning of the 12th as a more focused trough axis swung into the region. This was followed by more stereotypical NW flow lake effect for the day on the 12th. This resulted in periods of hazardous travel, and snowfall totals close to 24 inches in 24-48 hours. By 1900EST on the 12th, total snowfall for the 2024-25 winter season at the NWS Gaylord, MI office was 83 inches, over half of the normal snowfall for an entire winter season for the Gaylord area. 81.2 inches of this fell since 0000EST on November 28th (Thanksgiving Day).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1229780. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.