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IT'S HOT, SO EXPECT SNOW
September 10, 2005
BY MARTY HAIR
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Above-normal temperatures in the Great Lakes are likely to bring more lake-effect snow than usual in late fall and early winter.
"It's a chilly thought," said meteorologist Brian Montgomery of the National Weather Service in White Lake Township. Lake-effect snow occurs when cold air moves across still-warm water, picking up moisture and dumping it as snow on land.
Michigan's traditional lake-effect snow belts are along the Lake Michigan shoreline, in the Upper Peninsula and in the Thumb. However, Montgomery said, occasionally Great Lakes lake-effect snows will reach Detroit and as far as West Virginia if conditions are just right -- or wrong, depending on how you feel about snow.
Normal snowfall in Muskegon is 105.5 inches, according to the weather service. Detroit's yearly snowfall averages about 44 inches.
Detroit, meanwhile, continues to bask in its hottest summer in more than a century of record-keeping, with 18 days at 90 or above, compared to the usual 12, and an average temperature of 74.8 degrees compared to the normal 71.4.
The previous hottest summer on record was 1995, which averaged 74.5.
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/snow10e_20050910.htm
September 10, 2005
BY MARTY HAIR
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Above-normal temperatures in the Great Lakes are likely to bring more lake-effect snow than usual in late fall and early winter.
"It's a chilly thought," said meteorologist Brian Montgomery of the National Weather Service in White Lake Township. Lake-effect snow occurs when cold air moves across still-warm water, picking up moisture and dumping it as snow on land.
Michigan's traditional lake-effect snow belts are along the Lake Michigan shoreline, in the Upper Peninsula and in the Thumb. However, Montgomery said, occasionally Great Lakes lake-effect snows will reach Detroit and as far as West Virginia if conditions are just right -- or wrong, depending on how you feel about snow.
Normal snowfall in Muskegon is 105.5 inches, according to the weather service. Detroit's yearly snowfall averages about 44 inches.
Detroit, meanwhile, continues to bask in its hottest summer in more than a century of record-keeping, with 18 days at 90 or above, compared to the usual 12, and an average temperature of 74.8 degrees compared to the normal 71.4.
The previous hottest summer on record was 1995, which averaged 74.5.
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/snow10e_20050910.htm
