Monday, 12/2

 I think we lucked out with this one.

First of all, hope everyone had a great holiday weekend.  I did, although I'm guessing that our friends in the eastern and western UP probably did not.  They were blasted by that ongoing winter deluge that has affected the Great Lakes.  I know Ironwood had a couple of feet, Houghton almost two, and both Munising and the Soo had over two feet of snow in less than 24 hours.

Meanwhile, what was is like here in Marquette?

Seriously...that's a picture I took yesterday (Sunday) afternoon as Loraine and I walked down Third Street in Marquette.  While the rest of the UP (and, indeed most of the Upper Midwest) was getting hammered by snow, we had, uhm, blue skies.  Oh, it was cold, thanks to the wind, but we had nothing--and I mean nothing--in the way of snow.

I guess we're just lucky that way.

Now, that's supposed to change today, if only because the wind is slightly shifting direction, and we may get a couple of inches of lake effect snow (only a dusting, though, as I write this).  Even if we do, it'll be nothing like the two feet Munising received (or, indeed, the almost four feet they got in Erie, Pennsylvania).  All of this snow is lake effect, and because of the direction of the wind--northwest--the Keweenaw Peninsula protects us, acting like a breakwall out in a rough lake.  Now, if the wind shifts directly to the north today, as predicted, then we lose that protection, and get a little snow.

But, like I said, it'll be nothing like what the rest of the Great Lakes region has been getting.

I keep wondering if we'll get a "normal" winter this year, knowing full well that nothing is "normal" any more as far as our weather goes.  And this past weekend proved it.  While there was snow to the left of us and snow to the right of us?

Well, we got to work a little on our December tans.  Go figure.

(jim@wmqt.com)