The Winter Report Card: A By-The-Numbers Breakdown Of An Unpredictable Season

This winter in northern Michigan played out like a fireworks show: a slow start, a crackling mid-section, and a truly explosive grand finale. With April officially upon us, The Ticker is taking one last look back at this unpredictable season of frozen bays and snow days.

145: Season-to-date snowfall in Traverse City according to the National Weather Service, as of April 1. That number is well above both the typical season-to-date average (96.6 inches) and the full-season average (101 inches), and is more than double the paltry 65 inches Traverse City got just two winters ago.

Even barring any additional snowfall in the coming days and weeks, this winter is the second snowiest one TC has seen in the past decade. The snowiest one in recent memory? Last winter, which recorded 152 inches when all was said and done. Of course, both years still pale in comparison to Traverse City’s record winter: 1995-96, which brought a whopping 191.2 inches of snow.

Other parts of northern Michigan, as usual, have had even more snow than Traverse City. Gaylord is up to 163.5 inches, and Petoskey is sitting at 170.5 inches. Both of those areas have had historic winters lately, with Gaylord getting its snowiest winter on record last year (204.8 inches) and Petoskey nearing its own record this year (184.8 inches, set in 2013/14).

88: Days this winter when Traverse City’s snow depth measured half a foot or more. Typically, a TC winter only sees 57 days with that amount of accumulation.

23.6: Traverse City’s average temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, during this year’s “meteorological winter,” which spans from December 1 through February 28. Notably, while last winter was snowier, this winter was colder. A year ago, temperatures averaged out to 25.6 degrees for the same three-month stretch.

60: The temperature variance, in degrees Fahrenheit, observed in Traverse City during the meteorological winter. The coldest temperature recorded this season? Five degrees below zero, on both January 25 and February 1. The warmest temp of the winter, meanwhile, happened on January 9, when the mercury went up to 55 degrees.

For reference, we’re just two years on from the warmest temperature ever recorded in Traverse City during a meteorological winter: 73 degrees on February 27, 2024.

53: Inches of snowfall measured in Traverse City during the month of January – the area’s fourth snowiest January on record, and 5.7 inches more than average for that month. February, in comparison, wasn’t particularly snowy: just 15.7 inches of snow – 5.7 inches less than typical. (December, for the record, clocked in at 30.3 inches of snowfall, bringing the meteorological winter to a 99-inch total.)

13.3: Inches of snowfall recorded in Traverse City on March 15, in the midst of a historic blizzard that dumped nearly 20 inches of snow on the Cherry Capital. While not technically part of the meteorological winter, that day was the snowiest of the season, and propelled March to a total snowfall of 33.5 inches.

3: The number of all-time high temperature records Traverse City has broken in 2026 so far, according to Extreme Weather Watch. Despite the colder-than-average winter, TC hit new daily highs on January 8 (50 degrees), January 9 (55 degrees), and March 9 (67).

Not a single day this winter set a low-temperature record. In fact, the last year to set any cold records at all was 2020, which did so on both May 13 (24 degrees) and September 19 (33 degrees).

58.31: Percentage of the Great Lakes covered in ice at the winter 2025-26 maximum, which occurred on February 9. That peak came just a few days after The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay declared West Grand Traverse Bay had officially frozen over for the first time since 2019. Last year, the Great Lakes peaked at 52.23 percent ice coverage.

10: Snow days called by Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) this winter, just one shy of the record 11 cancellations the district burned through during the winter of 2018-19. Five of those snow days came in January, four in March, and one in December. For comparison, TCAPS had eight snow days last winter, while the previous three school years combined for a total of only nine.

2: Weeks this winter– January 19-23 and March 16-20 – where TCAPS students missed three of their five school days due to inclement weather. The March blizzard brought the rare phenomenon of four consecutive snow days, on Friday March 13 and the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Parents, we see you.

582: Athletes who participated in this year's 50th Annual North American Vasa races in February.

12 million: Gallons of snow made at Mt. Holiday this winter, according to Executive Director Chris Remy. Other by-the-numbers highlights from the ski hill include: 750 season passes and 4,521 day tickets sold, 1,647 equipment rentals, 5,000-plus tubing guests, 258 Kiwanis Snowsports School participants, 11,237 total skier visits, and a 92-day season, from the December 20 opening day to the last hurrah on March 21. 

“Honestly, this was a year to beat all years,” Remy tells The Ticker.