MARQUETTE, MI-- Upper Peninsula residents are digging out of a blizzard that dropped 18 inches of snow in some areas.
Jonathan Voss is a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Marquette. He says a Saturday night’s winter storm morphed into a blizzard Sunday afternoon.
“It strengthened so quickly that they call it a ‘bomb cyclone,’” he says. “They call it bombogenesis, but it’s a cyclone that strengthens more than 24 millibars in 24 hours.”
Voss says high winds whipped the snow and created whiteout conditions across the U.P.
“We’re getting wind reports over across the Keweenaw exceeding 65 miles an hour at both the Houghton County Airport and Copper Harbor,” he says.
Roads and schools across the U.P. are closed Monday.
The roofs of several Marquette-area businesses caved in Sunday under the weight of the snow, which hasn’t had a chance to melt over the past few weeks.
Thousands of residents remain without power, especially in the eastern U.P.
Voss says the NWS Marquette office has recorded 202.2 inches so far this winter—55 inches above the normal 147.2 inches. He says 87.3 inches of that fell this month alone.
