Jeff Andresen is the state of Michigan's climatologist and a professor in the Department of Geography at Michigan State University. He joins Kirk Heinze on Greening of the Great Lakes to recap the record-setting winter of 2013/2014.
"Brutal might not be the word in some cases to do this winter justice," Andresen says. "Many years from now we'll be able to look back and say we experienced the winter of 2013/2014."
The beginning of the pattern that caused the cold and snowy winter goes all the way back to before Thanksgiving, says Andresen. And the direct physical cause of our really cold winter was an extremely unusual upper air pattern that persisted for almost five months.
"If we go back and look at mean temperatures across Michigan, we had below normal temperatures from November through March, and actually now probably April will be added to that as well," he says. "The last time we had a five-month November through March period that cold was 1911/1912."
It was the fourth coldest November through March in Michigan in 150 years of record keeping, adds Andresen. Many areas, particularly in southeast Michigan, set all time snowfall records. "We had the most consecutive days of snow cover on the ground, the most water equivalent in the snow pack, and the most number of days with below zero temperatures.
"We ran out of superlatives to describe this winter, and what makes it even more unusual is that it countered a longer term trend toward milder winters that goes back several decades."
Andresen adds that as cold as it was here and in the northeast, Europe, Alaska and the western United States had one of the mildest, if not the mildest, winters on record.
"And if you average everything off globally, as cold as we were, January and March were among the four warmest months on record globally."
The winter also produced the second-most ice cover on the Great Lakes. It was second only to 1979 through 50 years of data. Thirty percent of the Great Lakes are still covered in ice, most of that on Lake Superior; that is probably a record, Andresen says.
The ice cover is mostly a positive in terms of its impact on lake levels, says Andresen, because the presence of ice acts as a cover on the ice and reduces, if not prevents, evaporation during the winter.
"And there has been an increase in evaporation from the lakes in the winter over the last few decades due to the milder winters, but lake levels have responded quickly this winter. Add above-average precipitation to the mix and we've had a significant jump. We're still below normal on most of the lakes, but we're more respectable than we've been the last few years."
The winter's impact on agriculture, Andresen, will depend on the crop.
"There were five major arctic outbreaks of severe cold, the first came right after New Year's and was accompanied by strong winds, which is also something very unusual. Due to the combined effects of those arctic outbreaks, we did have some damage to over wintering vegetation - tree fruit, wine grapes perhaps - it's not clear yet because most of those crops haven't come out of dormancy yet.
"But it's fairly likely that we have sustained some type of butter tissue damage. That is not very common here in Michigan because the Great Lakes moderate or buffer, but we had pure arctic air with no moderation.
"On the other side of the coin for those same crops, especially the tree fruit and our over wintering perennials, these cold late winters and early springs suppress the beginning stages of development in the spring, which is a good thing. As far as the growers are concerned, the longer they can delay that beginning of growth the less susceptible those crops are to spring freezes, which are typically the greatest threat to production year to year. So in that way this year has been fairly good."
With all the snow pack, Andresen adds, the soil temperatures remained above where they typically are; "snow is a great insulator.
"And so even with all the snow on the ground, a lot of it melted evenly and went into the ground. That's a positive for later on and for soil moisture."
Some types of over-wintering insects and disease pathogens that were above the snow line could have been taken out by the cold temperatures, Andresen adds. On the other hand, those that remained in the soil "had a nice cozy insulated blanket on top of them so they likely had higher rates of survival."
As far as Michigan experiencing another winter like this anytime soon, Andresen jokes that he's a fairly risk-averse person and not a betting man. But he says "you might have better odds putting your whole paycheck on double zero at Soaring Eagle; the chances are very low. Again, statistically a winter like this very rarely happens, at least in one lifetime and given the overall long term trends."
What does the harsh winter portend for our spring summer of 2014?
"At least for the near term I expect a bit of a continuation of the cooler than normal pattern, maybe a bit wetter than normal as well, which is not the best situation for agriculture.
"Officially there is no direction on our summer conditions from the Climate Prediction Center at NOAA. However, that said, there is strong empirical evidence based on heavy ice cover and very cold winters that summers in Michigan that follow those tend to be cooler than normal. So if I was a betting man, I'd hedge my bets toward a cooler than normal summer."
Please click here to hear Andresen's Greening of the Great Lakes conversation with Heinze.