Winter Storm — Eastern Mackinac County, Michigan

2022-01-09 to 2022-01-10 · Eastern Mackinac County, Michigan

Event narrative

US-2 from Worth Rd. to St. Ignace was closed for several hours due to whiteout conditions from gust winds and lake effect snow bands. Worth Rd. between between Brevort and M-123 also likely closed under similar conditions.

Wider weather episode

An impressive longwave trough pivoted across the Great Lakes 1/9 into 1/10 and worked to deepen a cyclone crossing Hudson Bay. Subsidence behind the wave helped build strong high pressure across much of the central CONUS. A tightened pressure gradient across the Great Lakes in between these two features resulted in enhanced WNW low-level flow and associated lake effect snow across the region. Cold temperatures lead to small flakes across most of the region, but enhanced convergence with lake aggregate troughing and land breeze formation from the eastern upper peninsula and Ontario, Canada resulted in heavy lake effect snow across parts of Chippewa county where an official event-total snowfall amount of 16.1 was measured in Sault Ste Marie. In 24 hours from 7am EST 1/9 to 7am EST 1/10, 14.2 was measured at the site. Cold temperatures and gusty winds also resulted in significant visibility impacts, closing down a large portion of US-2 during the afternoon of 1/9 due to whiteout conditions.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 992334. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.