NORTHERN MICHIGAN — If you are a skier, snowmobiler or cold weather outdoor enthusiast, the winter has basically been a bust for about the last 10 days.

Jeff Zoltowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Gaylord, said there is very little or no snow on the ground as of Dec. 28 in Northern Michigan.

“That’s the case for the entire state. Even for places near Lake Superior (in the Upper Peninsula) that routinely have a ton of snow by this time, they don’t have much of anything either,” Zoltowski said, noting that there are minor amounts of snow in the Keweenaw area.

As for the skiers and snowmobilers, “you have to go out of the country or head out west” to find decent snow, he said.

“We have certainly gone through Christmas in and of itself with very little snow on the ground previously,” said Zoltowski.

A year ago, Gaylord and much of Northern Michigan experienced a major snow storm with over 20 inches of snow just before Christmas. Most of that melted off in the next week or so, Zoltowski recalled.

In 2021, there was very little snow on the ground around Christmas. Zoltowski said you would have to go back to 2006 to find a comparable period of little or no snowfall for the period from Christmas to New Year’s Day in the region.

“We had a ton of snow early in that month — around 17 inches — and then it melted off,” he said. “We officially had a trace of snow on the ground for Christmas and then we had either zero or a trace of snow for the week after.”

Subscribe Check out our latest offers and read the local news that matters to you

A normal December snowfall in Gaylord measures about 54.2 inches, according to Zoltowski. Through Dec. 28, Gaylord has had 26.3 inches of snow, or about half of its normal snowfall. It’s the same story around the region as Traverse City had 19.4 inches, Petoskey 17.6 inches and Sault Ste. Marie recorded 35.9 inches of snow.

Zoltowski said right now it doesn’t look like there will be snow in the forecast until after the new year.

“It looks like we are likely to see colder air push back into the region from about the middle of next week (Jan. 3-4) on. At that point snow chances will be increasing again,” he said.

— Contact Paul Welitzkin at pwelitzkin@gaylordheraldtimes.com.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: December snowfall well below average across Northern Michigan