UP Michigan's Winter A Farewell To Snow, Fishing, Racing; Skiing; Yamaha Exiting Snowmobile Market

[hatrack]

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Video: Tell me you don’t have snow in February in Michigan’s UP while not telling me.

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Across the Great Lakes, daily maximum temperatures this winter have averaged 5 degrees to 10 degrees above average. Snowfall has been paltry and quick to melt. It is tempting to blame El Niño, a cyclical phenomenon in which weak Pacific trade winds cause warmer and dryer weather in parts of the northern U.S. and Canada — and many have.

But multiple experts who spoke to Bridge said El Niño’s effects are minimal in this part of the country. And this year’s cycle isn’t particularly severe. “This is not what an El Niño winter is typical of,” said Sapna Sharma, a climate expert and professor in the biology department at York University in Ontario. “We’ve had El Niño winters in the past…we also know that year after year, we’re breaking records for the warmest global air temperatures in recorded history.”

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Lake ice is getting thinner, too. This year, the Great Lakes maxed out at just 16 percent ice cover — less than a third of normal. By mid-century, many inland lakes will fail to consistently freeze over at all, said Sharma, who has extensively studied the topic. That means ice fishing season will become shorter and more dangerous — if it arrives. And across much of the state, skating and skiing will be activities confined to resorts and arenas capable of making artificial snow and ice. “There will be loss,” Rood said.

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In 1968, Yamaha released its first snowmobile, the SL350, by applying small engine technology which it developed in the motorcycle business. Over the past 55 years, Yamaha developed snowmobiles for sports, leisure, and business use as a means of transportation mainly in snowy areas found in North America and Europe. Yamaha also aimed to grow the business through the early introduction of environmentally-friendly 4-stroke models and alliances with other companies. However, Yamaha has concluded it will be difficult to continue a sustainable business in the snowmobile market. Going forward, Yamaha will concentrate management resources on current business activities and new growth markets.

Link to tweet

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https://thinc.blog/2024/02/27/sadness-as-the-great-white-north-goes-brown/

[dem4decades]

1. I knew it was happening in Southern New England, for some silly reason I thought places like MI it was not.

Of course it is. We had a few inches of snow left yesterday, now 24 hours of 50 degrees with rain, it's gone. We used to go ice fishing on Super Bowl Sunday, this year we golfed.

[Think. Again.]

2. Just the beginning.

[gibraltar72]

3. 72 at middle of wrist yesterday.

Lucky to break 40 today. But no complaints here.

[llmart]

5. It was 74o at 2 PM yesterday in Macomb.

Right now it's 54o but I think it will be dropping throughout the day.

Mother Nature is showing us what happens when we don't heed the warnings.

[nuxvomica]

4. 53 F in northern New York right now

This is the Lake George-Saratoga area. We are having an unusually warm February.

[IbogaProject]

6. Watch out, sharp drop to cold coming

The temperature is going to drop overnight. But it will only be cold Friday, back to these unseasonable temps over the weekend.

[nuxvomica]

8. Yeah, I noticed that

After that drop, it doesn't seem like it will go under 45 for a high for the next two weeks. But it will be in the 20s during the nights.

[DENVERPOPS]

7. Colorado is experiencing

much less snow than a few decades ago.............and it is much warmer summers or winters.
It is February along the front range of the rockies, and we are experiencing "Red Flag" wildfire warnings this week with several wildfires having broken out along the front range due to wind, warm temperatures and low moisture vegetation.......

When I was a kid, in the summer in Denver, would have a couple of days of 90+ in August. Now we have 90's probably 30-40-50? days a summer, with a dozen or more days > 100 degrees.

One of the worst weather nightmare scenarios is in Alaska. Extreme heat is melting the permafrost. The caribou used to walk on top of that permafrost to migrate every year, now they just sink up to their body and die. I read an article about they were losing hundreds of thousands of them. The warmer temps bring out even worse amounts of mosquitoes. Covering them from head to toe and literally driving the caribou insane. We talk about the wildfires down here, they have been having monstrous wildfires in Alaska, that just go on and on across their vast expanses. I think most of the people up in Alaska love Oil Companies, deny the climate change attributed to the way we have been treating our planet, and they almost religiously vote bright RED.........Not unlike a lot of lower 48 states that are pure RED and being ravaged with more extreme wildfires, more tornadoes, bigger and worse hurricanes, flooding, droughts, heat extremes, cold extremes, etc etc etc.