Michigan weather is alarming [View all]

This has been the craziest Winter of all time. I cannot believe it. I'm here in Grand Rapids and we basically had 10 days of Winter and that's it. It was almost 60 on Christmas Day. Then we had 1 big snowstorm a few weeks ago that dropped 30 inches over a 10 day period and it's been 40 since.

10 day forecast has no snow and includes some mid 50s for temperature. I shoveled for like a week. Just absolutely stunning. And yeah, I realize there are always late February and March snowstorms, but they generally don't have much staying power. The forecast for February calls for maybe 1 day of snow.

Now I am usually very careful about equating seasonal weather with Global Warming, but this is something I have never seen in my 51 years living in Michigan. It's looking like we're going to be going into at least late February really having only about 10 days of what we consider as Winter weather here. And in December, we had the most days of sun in recorded history in my city for a December. Because we had the 1 massive snowstorm, I'm sure it won't be a record low for snow, but it's sure to shatter all records for least snowy days.

It's stunning, it's shocking. I can't believe more people are as gobsmacked as I am. This is like the least severe Winter in 50 years by a factor of like 5. Not complaining, but this is surely going to have unforseen negative effects. The soil relies on snow and water freezing to aerate it for crops. Severe Winters control pests and wild life. Lake Michigan has had basically no ice all season, the ice cover in the Winter really does a lot to protect the shores from erosion. Ground water needs snow melt to replenish. There was basically no icefishing season in my part of the state, the lakes don't have enough ice cover to be safe right now. SNowmobiling and skiing season were the shortest ever, that has a huge economic impact on many small towns. And there's a who host of effects we don't even know about yet.

Global Warming is here and it just might be way further a long than even the most alarmist scientists are letting on.