Snow cover on April 24, 2018

    

After a fully wintry three weeks in April, Michigan still has a significant amount of land covered in snow. One area still has almost three feet of snow on the ground.

Michigan has 37 percent of our ground still covered with snow on April 24, 2018. That’s down from 49 percent on March 24, 2018.

The snow is melting fast. The average snow depth at locations with snow is only 2.9 inches. However, there are places that have much more snow on the ground.

Areas around Munising, MI are still reporting 32 inches of snow on the ground. In fact, last week some parts of the U.P. were reporting the highest snow cover amounts of the entire winter. That’s a tough feat- having the most snow on the ground in mid-April. Grand Marais has 30 inches of snow cover. Marquette still has 20 inches, and Gaylord has 11 inches of snow cover.

There is still a lot of water in the snow on the ground. The huge snowstorm in mid-April had heavy, wet snow with lots of moisture content. Satellites can figure out how much water equivalent is in the snow. Some areas with the deepest snowpack have 14 inches of water in the snow. The average amount of water in all of Michigan’s snow is 0.80″.

Amount of water in the snow on the ground, on April 24, 2018.

    

Almost 40 percent of Michigan has almost one inch of water covering, in the form of snow cover.

Snow cover across the U.S. on April 24, 2018.

    

The U.S. still has nine percent of the land covered with snow. This is the most snow this late back to 2013.