Nov. 7, 2023
Snowfall in Northern Michigan – MDW394
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Dealing with heavy snowfall during the winter months is a way of life for the residents of Northern Michigan. With an average snowfall that can exceed 100 inches in some areas, the communities have adapted in unique and effective ways.
Preparation for the snow season begins early. Residents ensure their homes are well-insulated, with sufficient heating systems to withstand the biting cold. Snow tires and chains become standard for vehicles as locals aim to maintain mobility in slippery conditions. Additionally, there's a significant investment in snowblowers and plows for personal use.
The local governments also play a crucial role. Budgets for winter are carefully planned to ensure that snowplows are in good condition and ready to clear the streets. There's a remarkable efficiency in the deployment of these services, often working throughout the night during heavy snowfall to minimize disruption to daily life.
Community spirit shines through during the winter months. Neighbors often help each other, especially in assisting those who are elderly or disabled with snow removal. This camaraderie extends to sharing resources like food and water during particularly severe storms that may lead to temporary isolation.
Education on dealing with winter conditions is also a key factor. Schools teach children about frostbite and hypothermia prevention, while local organizations provide winter survival tips. There are also community-led initiatives to ensure everyone has adequate clothing, such as coat drives.
Despite the challenges, the residents of Northern Michigan embrace the winter season with a sense of pride and enjoyment. Winter sports like skiing, snowboarding, and ice fishing are not just recreational activities but also a part of the cultural identity of the region.
In summary, Northern Michigan's approach to managing snowfall is a blend of preparation, community support, and embracing the harsh yet beautiful winter environment. This resilience allows the region to not only endure but also thrive during the snowy months.
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Mike Dell's world number 3
94 for November 7th, 2023.
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Hit it again. What a dummy. I.
3
00:00:36,545 --> 00:00:37,378
Ah, there it is.
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And here I am. How's it going? Let's see.
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Well,
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today being the 7th of
November for a lot of
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the northern parts of the world,
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it is getting close to winter
time and winter time. You know,
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I like to think of winter time as a
time that all the events slow down,
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you know, other than the holiday stuff,
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but it's not as busy as summer.
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Summer always seems that there's always
something every week, every weekend,
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every day after work, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. Well, you know,
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now it gets dark at five 30 here, uh,
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in Northern Michigan
anyway, and, you know,
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everything kind of huns
down and, you know,
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I tend to get a lot of reading done
and, and stuff like that, you know,
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stuff that normally I wouldn't
get to do. But on the other hand,
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I gotta deal with snow. Not
that it's terrible. And,
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you know, back a few years
ago, or well, many years ago,
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snow used to be a lot,
you know, a lot more than up here.
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And now it's, uh, you know,
going, getting warmer and, uh,
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less snowy. Last year, I only had to
blow the driveway out maybe three times,
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and I don't ever remember the
snow sticking around completely.
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Like you, you know, it used to be like
mid-November, it would snow and that, oh,
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that's the one that's gonna stick.
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And we wouldn't see the lawn
until sometime in March.
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But now it always seems
once a month we get a thaw.
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We may get a bunch of snow, but we'll
get a, a day or two or three that'll, uh,
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we'll thaw. And that's, eh,
I don't know. I, I guess,
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I guess maybe it's a
climate change, but I,
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I believe that climate change
climate's change all the time.
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We used to be in an ice age,
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so obviously since the ice
age it's warmed up a bit.
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And I think it may continue to do that
for a while and then a little cycle back
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and, and all that. And, uh,
you know, like I said, I,
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I'm not denying that
the change is happening,
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but I kinda wonder about the cause.
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I don't think the fact
that, uh, you know, I,
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I drive around in an old car that
doesn't have a catalytic converter is
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contributing to anything other than, yeah,
it kind of stinks. But I don't think,
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uh, we're gonna hurt
ourselves with it. I mean,
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one volcano puts out more crap than,
uh, than all the cars in the world,
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you know, as we've talked about
before, I don't think the, uh,
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electric cars are gonna be the answer,
answer completely. Maybe, you know,
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hybrids, I'm cool with
that. But, uh, you know,
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as far as fully electric vehicles and,
you know, until there's a charger, uh,
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or multiple chargers in, uh,
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in quantities similar to gas stations,
I don't think it's gonna work.
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And of course, our grid
doesn't really handle it well,
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but let's get back out on the
subject at hand. Snow, uh, you know,
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up here we deal with it in,
in, in a lot of different ways.
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Our County Road commission has
these great big dump trucks with big
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plows on 'em, and they fill
'em full of sand and salt,
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and they spread sand and salt all over
the roads, and that makes the cars rust.
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And, uh, that kind of sucks, but, uh,
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at least you don't slide off
into the ditch. You know,
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all the big stores with the big parking
lots, they have their snow crew,
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and usually they got a couple of big
tractors with, or loaders with, uh,
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snow buckets. If you've ever seen
a snow bucket, it looks like a,
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a flat horseshoe, uh, about
four feet high and, uh,
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you know, two or three times the,
the length of a normal loader bucket.
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And then it still has kind of the same
loader bucket towards the back of it.
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But that way they can push a whole
bunch of snow and then kinda lift it up.
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Big piles. You know, in the
Walmart, uh, area, you know,
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in Traverse City here, there's a whole
section of the parking lot by, you know,
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the end of winter there's, you're
just a giant mountain of snow,
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and that's always the last
snow to, uh, melt.
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And of course there's a lot of, uh,
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pickup trucks and whatnot running
around with plows on the front. And,
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uh,
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they do people's driveways and
smaller parking lots and businesses
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and whatnot. And the city,
they, you know, in the,
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in the main part of
downtown Traverse City,
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they plow it all into a big
furrow in the middle of the road.
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And then they have a giant snowblower
that blows it into semi trailers,
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um, you know, open top dump trailers,
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and then they take it out to a lot
that they have just outside of town,
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and they got a giant mountain of snow
over there. So that's kind of cool.
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Uh, as far as, you know, people at
home, you know, there's the snowblowers,
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there's shovels of course, and,
uh, some people have tractors with,
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with plows or snowblowers on 'em,
or sometimes both, or loaders. Um,
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you know, I've got a tractor
with a plow blade and I got, uh,
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a couple of walk-behind snowblowers, and
I even have a blower for the tractor,
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but the walk-behind ones are easier
to deal with, so I never use it.
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But you know, we, we, we
deal with it, we deal with,
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my dad always jokes he says, he says,
yeah, I'm getting tired of winter.
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I'm just gonna drive south with a
snowblower in my back, back of my truck.
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And then, uh, the first
stop place I stop where, uh,
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I ask somebody what that is and
they say, oh, never saw one before.
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That's where I wanna be.
I, I still don't mind the winter.
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Of course, you know,
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my wife is retired and I am
still working, but commuting,
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you know, 30 feet out my back
door, so it's not a hardship,
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even if it does snow a foot. Okay.
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I just have to kick my boots a little bit
at the door when I come in the office.
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And it's nice and toasty warm in here.
It's nice and toasty warm in the house.
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If I've gotta go somewhere, I can go out,
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start the truck and come back in the
house and wait for it to warm up,
100
00:07:02,435 --> 00:07:06,215
you know? So I, I'm never in that
big a hurry to go anywhere, you know,
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I don't have to commute to a job
with that involves a vehicle.
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So I don't have to scrape windows
or anything like that unless,
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unless I've got time. And this
year with my shoulder, uh, surgery,
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I, I'm not gonna be able to operate
a snowblower probably all winter, uh,
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because it's, you know, it
takes a few months before, uh,
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that's all back up to fight and strength.
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So we'll likely hire someone
to take care of the snow
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blowing slash shoveling chores. You know,
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between the house and the office I use,
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I got a small snowblower and that's
what I usually do is, you know,
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do the walks with that.
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And they do a trail around the backyard
for the beagles so they don't have to
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get in the deep snow if they don't
want to. But it, uh, you know,
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that's how we deal with
snow up here. You know,
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just like people that live in Phoenix
or some other hot desert area,
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Vegas, whatever,
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deal with the heat in the summer,
you know, I don't care who you are,
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120 degrees is hot. 105 degrees
is hot, even if it's a dry heat.
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'cause as you know, a snowblower,
uh, snowblower,
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a blowtorch and a campfire
are both dry heat.
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So at some point it just
gets too damned hot.
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So they deal with it with
air conditioning. Well, we
do it the other way around.
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We deal with the heat. You know,
most, most places have, you know,
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most houses have at least two ways of
heating our house. 'cause you never know,
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the furnace might crap out or
whatever. I've got, uh, you know,
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just electric heat in this
office, a little Eden.
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P you might hear it running
in the background, although
it's pretty darn quiet.
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And if that crap, well if, if the
heater craps out, I got another one.
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But if the electric crap's out,
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well I wouldn't really be out in the
office if the electric crapped out.
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But I do have a generator so I can
run electric heat in the house.
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00:09:05,665 --> 00:09:09,965
We have a fireplace and gas
heat, you know, furnace.
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So if the power goes out or the
gas furnace goes bad, you know,
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we can minimally heat with the fireplace.
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And we always keep enough wood on
hand to last a few days anyway.
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I think we got like half a
cord or something, you know,
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'cause we've really never experienced
too many power outages here.
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That's because there's not a lot
of electric cars up here. If,
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I guess if there was more electric
cars, we'd have power outages,,
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you think? But, uh, yeah,
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so it's not like the end of
the world to deal with snow.
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We just happen to be in a really
snowy part of the country. Uh,
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it's not the worst snowy part
of the country. You know, the,
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the buffalo, New York tends to
really get hammered and you know,
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there's places in Minnesota
that get hammered pretty bad.
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And of course Alaska and out
in the mountains and the west,
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but a lot of people don't live up there.
Or if they do live up there, they,
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00:10:05,415 --> 00:10:09,295
they're prepared for it. You know,
the up of Michigan, you know,
149
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gets a lot of snow and Northern
lower gets a lot of snow.
150
00:10:13,715 --> 00:10:17,215
And you know, we're just used to it. We
get the thing called lake effect snow,
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where the cold air blows over the, uh,
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warm water of Lake Michigan
or relatively warm water,
153
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or Lake Michigan. And it dumps
all the snow on us.,
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uh, we're a little close to the lake
here, so it blows over us mostly,
155
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but a little bit inland.
It gets real deep at times.
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It could be a sunny day and we'll
get a six inches of snow. So
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that's, uh, that's just the way it is.
And, you know, most people adapt well,
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uh, where to wherever they're living.
159
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I lived in Iceland for a year and up
there they didn't get a lot of snow.
160
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They got some, didn't get a lot of snow,
161
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but they get a lot of wind and
you just get used to it, you know,
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a 40 mile an hour wind,
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you just dress for it and you
know you're prepared for it.
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00:11:06,525 --> 00:11:09,855
And it just wasn't that bad, you know,
165
00:11:09,995 --> 00:11:12,855
it was actually milder
winters than here. Just,
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they lasted for six months
instead of four or three,
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you know, whatever. So any
who, that's gonna be my, uh,
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episode for today. We'll
catch you tomorrow.
00:00:00,595 --> 00:00:05,125
Mike Dell's world number 3
94 for November 7th, 2023.
2
00:00:06,785 --> 00:00:08,885
Hit it again. What a dummy. I.
3
00:00:36,545 --> 00:00:37,378
Ah, there it is.
4
00:00:38,145 --> 00:00:43,005
And here I am. How's it going? Let's see.
5
00:00:43,115 --> 00:00:43,455
Well,
6
00:00:43,455 --> 00:00:48,165
today being the 7th of
November for a lot of
7
00:00:48,745 --> 00:00:50,845
the northern parts of the world,
8
00:00:51,665 --> 00:00:56,285
it is getting close to winter
time and winter time. You know,
9
00:00:56,525 --> 00:01:01,045
I like to think of winter time as a
time that all the events slow down,
10
00:01:01,145 --> 00:01:03,045
you know, other than the holiday stuff,
11
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but it's not as busy as summer.
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00:01:06,625 --> 00:01:10,605
Summer always seems that there's always
something every week, every weekend,
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00:01:10,815 --> 00:01:13,365
every day after work, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. Well, you know,
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00:01:13,385 --> 00:01:17,125
now it gets dark at five 30 here, uh,
15
00:01:17,425 --> 00:01:20,965
in Northern Michigan
anyway, and, you know,
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00:01:20,965 --> 00:01:24,725
everything kind of huns
down and, you know,
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I tend to get a lot of reading done
and, and stuff like that, you know,
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stuff that normally I wouldn't
get to do. But on the other hand,
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I gotta deal with snow. Not
that it's terrible. And,
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you know, back a few years
ago, or well, many years ago,
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00:01:44,845 --> 00:01:49,845
you know, a lot more than up here.
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And now it's, uh, you know,
going, getting warmer and, uh,
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less snowy. Last year, I only had to
blow the driveway out maybe three times,
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00:02:01,065 --> 00:02:05,445
and I don't ever remember the
snow sticking around completely.
25
00:02:05,675 --> 00:02:10,365
Like you, you know, it used to be like
mid-November, it would snow and that, oh,
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that's the one that's gonna stick.
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And we wouldn't see the lawn
until sometime in March.
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But now it always seems
once a month we get a thaw.
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We may get a bunch of snow, but we'll
get a, a day or two or three that'll, uh,
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we'll thaw. And that's, eh,
I don't know. I, I guess,
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I guess maybe it's a
climate change, but I,
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00:02:33,135 --> 00:02:36,815
I believe that climate change
climate's change all the time.
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We used to be in an ice age,
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so obviously since the ice
age it's warmed up a bit.
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And I think it may continue to do that
for a while and then a little cycle back
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and, and all that. And, uh,
you know, like I said, I,
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I'm not denying that
the change is happening,
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but I kinda wonder about the cause.
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I don't think the fact
that, uh, you know, I,
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I drive around in an old car that
doesn't have a catalytic converter is
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contributing to anything other than, yeah,
it kind of stinks. But I don't think,
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00:03:11,865 --> 00:03:14,405
uh, we're gonna hurt
ourselves with it. I mean,
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one volcano puts out more crap than,
uh, than all the cars in the world,
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you know, as we've talked about
before, I don't think the, uh,
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electric cars are gonna be the answer,
answer completely. Maybe, you know,
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hybrids, I'm cool with
that. But, uh, you know,
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as far as fully electric vehicles and,
you know, until there's a charger, uh,
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or multiple chargers in, uh,
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in quantities similar to gas stations,
I don't think it's gonna work.
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And of course, our grid
doesn't really handle it well,
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but let's get back out on the
subject at hand. Snow, uh, you know,
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up here we deal with it in,
in, in a lot of different ways.
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Our County Road commission has
these great big dump trucks with big
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plows on 'em, and they fill
'em full of sand and salt,
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and they spread sand and salt all over
the roads, and that makes the cars rust.
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And, uh, that kind of sucks, but, uh,
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at least you don't slide off
into the ditch. You know,
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all the big stores with the big parking
lots, they have their snow crew,
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and usually they got a couple of big
tractors with, or loaders with, uh,
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snow buckets. If you've ever seen
a snow bucket, it looks like a,
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a flat horseshoe, uh, about
four feet high and, uh,
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you know, two or three times the,
the length of a normal loader bucket.
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And then it still has kind of the same
loader bucket towards the back of it.
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But that way they can push a whole
bunch of snow and then kinda lift it up.
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Big piles. You know, in the
Walmart, uh, area, you know,
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in Traverse City here, there's a whole
section of the parking lot by, you know,
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the end of winter there's, you're
just a giant mountain of snow,
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and that's always the last
snow to, uh, melt
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00:05:05,895 --> 00:05:07,795
And of course there's a lot of, uh,
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pickup trucks and whatnot running
around with plows on the front. And,
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uh,
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they do people's driveways and
smaller parking lots and businesses
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and whatnot. And the city,
they, you know, in the,
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in the main part of
downtown Traverse City,
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they plow it all into a big
furrow in the middle of the road.
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And then they have a giant snowblower
that blows it into semi trailers,
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um, you know, open top dump trailers,
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00:05:33,535 --> 00:05:36,755
and then they take it out to a lot
that they have just outside of town,
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and they got a giant mountain of snow
over there. So that's kind of cool.
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00:05:41,895 --> 00:05:45,475
Uh, as far as, you know, people at
home, you know, there's the snowblowers,
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there's shovels of course, and,
uh, some people have tractors with,
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00:05:50,665 --> 00:05:55,635
with plows or snowblowers on 'em,
or sometimes both, or loaders. Um,
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00:05:56,095 --> 00:05:59,115
you know, I've got a tractor
with a plow blade and I got, uh,
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a couple of walk-behind snowblowers, and
I even have a blower for the tractor,
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00:06:03,975 --> 00:06:07,915
but the walk-behind ones are easier
to deal with, so I never use it.
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But you know, we, we, we
deal with it, we deal with,
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my dad always jokes he says, he says,
yeah, I'm getting tired of winter.
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I'm just gonna drive south with a
snowblower in my back, back of my truck.
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00:06:20,715 --> 00:06:24,135
And then, uh, the first
stop place I stop where, uh,
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00:06:24,295 --> 00:06:27,815
I ask somebody what that is and
they say, oh, never saw one before.
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That's where I wanna be
I, I still don't mind the winter.
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Of course, you know,
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my wife is retired and I am
still working, but commuting,
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00:06:39,955 --> 00:06:44,255
you know, 30 feet out my back
door, so it's not a hardship,
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00:06:44,255 --> 00:06:46,375
even if it does snow a foot. Okay.
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00:06:46,455 --> 00:06:50,415
I just have to kick my boots a little bit
at the door when I come in the office.
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And it's nice and toasty warm in here.
It's nice and toasty warm in the house.
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If I've gotta go somewhere, I can go out,
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00:06:57,735 --> 00:07:01,775
start the truck and come back in the
house and wait for it to warm up,
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00:07:02,435 --> 00:07:06,215
you know? So I, I'm never in that
big a hurry to go anywhere, you know,
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00:07:06,215 --> 00:07:08,975
I don't have to commute to a job
with that involves a vehicle.
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00:07:09,075 --> 00:07:12,215
So I don't have to scrape windows
or anything like that unless,
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unless I've got time. And this
year with my shoulder, uh, surgery,
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I, I'm not gonna be able to operate
a snowblower probably all winter, uh,
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because it's, you know, it
takes a few months before, uh,
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that's all back up to fight and strength.
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So we'll likely hire someone
to take care of the snow
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blowing slash shoveling chores. You know,
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between the house and the office I use,
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00:07:36,695 --> 00:07:39,775
I got a small snowblower and that's
what I usually do is, you know,
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00:07:39,775 --> 00:07:40,895
do the walks with that.
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00:07:41,035 --> 00:07:45,495
And they do a trail around the backyard
for the beagles so they don't have to
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00:07:45,675 --> 00:07:50,535
get in the deep snow if they don't
want to. But it, uh, you know,
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00:07:50,915 --> 00:07:55,295
that's how we deal with
snow up here. You know,
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00:07:55,295 --> 00:07:59,535
just like people that live in Phoenix
or some other hot desert area,
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00:08:00,025 --> 00:08:01,215
Vegas, whatever,
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00:08:02,555 --> 00:08:06,885
deal with the heat in the summer,
you know, I don't care who you are,
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00:08:07,125 --> 00:08:12,125
120 degrees is hot. 105 degrees
is hot, even if it's a dry heat.
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00:08:13,125 --> 00:08:17,485
'cause as you know, a snowblower,
uh, snowblower
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00:08:17,765 --> 00:08:21,165
a blowtorch and a campfire
are both dry heat.
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00:08:22,105 --> 00:08:24,685
So at some point it just
gets too damned hot.
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00:08:24,825 --> 00:08:28,285
So they deal with it with
air conditioning. Well, we
do it the other way around.
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00:08:28,305 --> 00:08:32,875
We deal with the heat. You know,
most, most places have, you know,
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00:08:32,875 --> 00:08:36,875
most houses have at least two ways of
heating our house. 'cause you never know,
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00:08:36,935 --> 00:08:41,685
the furnace might crap out or
whatever. I've got, uh, you know,
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00:08:41,685 --> 00:08:45,125
just electric heat in this
office, a little Eden.
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00:08:45,245 --> 00:08:48,365
P you might hear it running
in the background, although
it's pretty darn quiet.
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00:08:49,505 --> 00:08:54,005
And if that crap, well if, if the
heater craps out, I got another one.
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00:08:54,705 --> 00:08:57,005
But if the electric crap's out,
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00:08:57,395 --> 00:09:01,565
well I wouldn't really be out in the
office if the electric crapped out.
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00:09:01,565 --> 00:09:05,525
But I do have a generator so I can
run electric heat in the house.
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00:09:05,665 --> 00:09:09,965
We have a fireplace and gas
heat, you know, furnace.
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00:09:10,865 --> 00:09:15,325
So if the power goes out or the
gas furnace goes bad, you know,
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00:09:15,325 --> 00:09:17,765
we can minimally heat with the fireplace.
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00:09:17,785 --> 00:09:21,765
And we always keep enough wood on
hand to last a few days anyway.
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00:09:21,845 --> 00:09:24,005
I think we got like half a
cord or something, you know,
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00:09:24,965 --> 00:09:28,725
'cause we've really never experienced
too many power outages here.
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00:09:29,225 --> 00:09:32,085
That's because there's not a lot
of electric cars up here. If,
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00:09:32,085 --> 00:09:35,525
I guess if there was more electric
cars, we'd have power outages,
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00:09:36,865 --> 00:09:39,975
you think? But, uh, yeah,
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00:09:40,155 --> 00:09:42,775
so it's not like the end of
the world to deal with snow.
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00:09:42,795 --> 00:09:46,695
We just happen to be in a really
snowy part of the country. Uh,
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00:09:46,765 --> 00:09:49,815
it's not the worst snowy part
of the country. You know, the,
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00:09:51,315 --> 00:09:55,535
the buffalo, New York tends to
really get hammered and you know,
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00:09:55,535 --> 00:09:58,375
there's places in Minnesota
that get hammered pretty bad.
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00:09:58,515 --> 00:10:01,815
And of course Alaska and out
in the mountains and the west,
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00:10:02,475 --> 00:10:05,415
but a lot of people don't live up there.
Or if they do live up there, they,
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00:10:05,415 --> 00:10:09,295
they're prepared for it. You know,
the up of Michigan, you know,
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00:10:09,405 --> 00:10:12,655
gets a lot of snow and Northern
lower gets a lot of snow.
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00:10:13,715 --> 00:10:17,215
And you know, we're just used to it. We
get the thing called lake effect snow,
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00:10:17,215 --> 00:10:20,415
where the cold air blows over the, uh,
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00:10:20,485 --> 00:10:24,625
warm water of Lake Michigan
or relatively warm water,
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00:10:24,765 --> 00:10:28,545
or Lake Michigan. And it dumps
all the snow on us.
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00:10:29,805 --> 00:10:33,305
uh, we're a little close to the lake
here, so it blows over us mostly,
155
00:10:33,525 --> 00:10:36,825
but a little bit inland.
It gets real deep at times.
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00:10:37,685 --> 00:10:41,545
It could be a sunny day and we'll
get a six inches of snow. So
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00:10:43,045 --> 00:10:47,105
that's, uh, that's just the way it is.
And, you know, most people adapt well,
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00:10:47,485 --> 00:10:49,065
uh, where to wherever they're living.
159
00:10:49,825 --> 00:10:53,945
I lived in Iceland for a year and up
there they didn't get a lot of snow.
160
00:10:53,945 --> 00:10:56,425
They got some, didn't get a lot of snow,
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00:10:56,565 --> 00:11:00,625
but they get a lot of wind and
you just get used to it, you know,
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00:11:00,745 --> 00:11:02,025
a 40 mile an hour wind,
163
00:11:02,685 --> 00:11:06,105
you just dress for it and you
know you're prepared for it.
164
00:11:06,525 --> 00:11:09,855
And it just wasn't that bad, you know,
165
00:11:09,995 --> 00:11:12,855
it was actually milder
winters than here. Just,
166
00:11:12,855 --> 00:11:16,815
they lasted for six months
instead of four
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00:11:17,595 --> 00:11:22,335
you know, whatever. So any
who, that's gonna be my, uh,
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00:11:22,405 --> 00:11:25,975
episode for today. We'll
catch you tomorrow.