Big snow memories

By MIRIAM MOELLER, Journal Staff Writer
MARQUETTE — During the second week of May in 1990, Steven Niemi, then 5, asked his grandpa Donald Hansen if he could take a ride on his snowmobile. The weather was sunny in the 80s and there was no snow on the ground, so Hansen told his disappointed grandson that he’d have to wait until the next year. Or so he thought.


On May 9 and 10, 1990, an unusually heavy and wet snow storm hit the Upper Peninsula, covering the ground in the Marquette area with 8.2 inches on May 9 and 14.2 inches on May 10.


“It was just a freak storm,” Hansen, now in his 80s, said. “It was blowing real hard, but the sun came out the next day and the snow disappeared the day after that.”


But during the two days of record snowfall, Hansen was able to grant his grandson’s wish to take a snowmobile ride on “real snow.”


“He was thrilled,” Hansen said, adding that his grandson, now a grown man, is currently serving his third military deployment to Iraq.


The two-day storm ended up producing the first and second largest recorded snowfalls in May, according to Jonathan Voss, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Negaunee township. The Weather Service’s data recordings at that site go back to 1961.


“Those are the highest by far,” he said. “That was unusual to get that much in May.”


Voss added that the snow was very wet and heavy with a 7-to-1 snow to water ratio. The May 10, 1990, snowfall equaled 2 inches of water, he said.


“That’s to be expected when it happens this late in the year,” Voss said. “If that would have been in January, you probably would have ended up getting a lot of lake effect snow on top of it.”


The storm was a low pressure system that came out of the southern central plains and brought “gulf moisture” with it. It deepened as it headed toward the Straits of Mackinac — a perfect track to produce a lot of heavy snow in the U.P., Voss said.


According to a May 11, 1990, Mining Journal article, trees and shrubs were bent and broken from the heavy snow. Public school classes were delayed or cancelled and several minor accidents were reported.


As for May 10, 2008, “we’re not looking at anything like that this May,” Voss said. “It’s going to be cool but nothing like that.”


He added that a system is moving into the U.P. this weekend that will most likely produce rain — not snow — tonight and Sunday.