The Michigan Weather Game

So it's officially time for the weather game in Michigan. Spring is great, but early, early spring sucks. Mother nature pulls out a lot of rope-a-dopes and bait-and-switches.

This whole week in Michigan it's been in the upper 30's and 40's with clear, sunny skies. For early March (still winter in MI) that's really amazing! One might think we're in for an outstanding spring this year, but we've all seen this movie. It starts out too good to be true; and it always is. What will happen come April is anyone's guess, but I'd put my money on several weeks of rollercoaster-like weather entertainment.

Opening week of April will cause havok on spring break travelers, airport delays will be the order of the day, for days. It will start out with copious amounts of rain, several inches of the wet stuff in two or three days. No, it won't be a warm rain, rather cold and blowing. Right on the heels of that beauty will be our usual spring snowstorm. Look for anywhere from 4-10" of snow, mixed in with intermmitent freezing rain as the cold front keeps fluctuating.

By now you'd think we've paid our dues for our March fun right? Oh no, this is Michigan. Buckle up big boy. More torrential downpours will follow our snowfall. Temperatures in the 50's and even more rain upon what we had gotten only a week earlier will compound the spring flooding problem on the Grand River. Poor Abrigador Trail will once again be swollowed whole along with the several dozen residences on it's watery path. There will be more flood-plain anguish further down river on the Grand on our way to the lakeshore. Once scenic river-front properties will find themsevles in the middle of the ever-expanding and rising currents. You'd think people (or at the very least insurance companies) would learn.

Finally, the lashing begins to subside as the month wears on. By now we are so weather-beaten we feel further from summer than we did in March. Sure enough though, as it always does, May will greet us with a fantastic start to another spectacular Pure Michigan summer.

We have to pay the toll to get out summer kicks here in the mitten state, but in the end the results are well worth the price. We're almost there friends, don't give up now!