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Area digs out after heavy snow

ESCANABA — Heavy snows left many Upper Peninsula residents digging out Sunday and Monday, but the exact amount of snow that fell varied greatly by location.

At the Escanaba Water Plant, snow totals are measured each morning at 7 a.m. and represent the amount of snow that fell during the prior 24-hour period. Monday morning, five inches were recorded for the period from 7 a.m. Sunday until 7 a.m. Monday, and another five inches were measured to have fallen from 7 a.m. Monday until this morning.

Snow totals recorded by the National Weather Service are recorded by volunteer observers, which can mean that recorded totals are not immediately available or are unavailable for certain dates. While snow totals for the majority of the south-central U.P. were were not yet available this morning, snow totals measuring Sunday’s snowfall into Monday morning showed a wide variation in precipitation.

In Delta County, 5.6 inches were recorded in the city of Gladstone, with an observer northwest of town measuring slightly less at 4.7 inches. An observer south/south-east of Rapid River recorded 7.8 inches of snow. The largest amount of snow to fall in Delta County hit Garden Corners, where a spotter recorded 11.5 inches.

In Schoolcraft County, 8.1 inches were recorded northeast of Cooks, 4 inches were recorded at the Manistique wastewater treatment plant, and 3 inches were recorded in the Parrot Bay area.

No measurements for Menominee County were submitted to the National Weather Service Monday.

According to Dave Petrovich, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Marquette office, the large amount of snow that hit the area over the past two days was largely due to southernly winds producing lake effect snow. When the winds shifted, snow fall continued to be affected by Lake Michigan.

“They had a perfect situation for lake effect snow and also some lake- enhanced snow in that low-pressure area,” said Petrovich.

For today, snowfall is expected to be significantly less in Delta County, with much of the area receiving no additional snowfall today.

“Northern Delta County might see on the order of an inch of snow during the day today. Anything south of that, we’re not expecting snow,” said Petrovich.

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