Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

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    SPRING SKATER
March 30, 2009

Winter won't let go; more snow this week

By SHERI McWHIRTER

TRAVERSE CITY -- Will it ever end? Well, not this week.

Wintery weather has a stranglehold on the region, and snow keeps falling, despite spring's arrival on the calendar more than a week ago. Forecasters say winter conditions won't let up this week, and maybe not next week, either.

"You get your hopes up when it's 60 degrees and you hope it lasts, but it doesn't," said Kayla Greilick. "Everybody wants the sun. The sun makes people happy."

Greilick drank a mug of coffee Monday morning on her home's front porch along Union Street in Traverse City, her yard adorned with several inches of fresh snow from the weekend. She's trying avoid thinking about winter's resurgence to focus on a Jamaican vacation in two weeks, she said.

Chances are the weather will break when she leaves for the tropics, Greilick said.

"I have lived in Michigan my whole life and this is just normal," she said.

Rachel and Andrew Johnson, 10 and 12, returned empty bottles and cans to Tom's Food Market along West Bay with their father, Bob Johnson, of Maple City. The children weren't pleased with snow on their spring break, they said.

"I hate it because it's cold. I was hoping to ride my bike and not have snow," Rachel said. "We just got rid of it. Why is it coming back?"

Her brother agreed.

"I don't like it. I'd rather be swimming," Andrew said.

It has been a long, snowy winter, like the region experienced 30-plus years ago, Bob Johnson said.

And it's not over yet.

"We're getting back into a fairly active weather pattern once again," said Brian Adam, meteorologist at the National Weather Service station in Gaylord.

Sunday brought between five and nine inches of snow across the region, and could be followed this week by rain and snow, then more rain and snow.

A rain storm will blow in from the Central Plains today, bringing up to a half-inch of precipitation with temperatures in the 40s. It will get colder as it rains, Adam said.

Wednesday will bring chances of rain and snow in the morning, with temperatures in the upper-30s and low-40s. Thursday will be similar, with chances of rain and snow and temperatures in the mid-40s, Adam said.

It's more of the same for Friday.

"It will be another wet day. Rain and snow, or a rain and snow mix," Adam said.

Sunshine should prevail during the weekend and temperatures will be in the mid-40s. It won't last, though.

"Indications are there is another system coming in by the end of the weekend, early next week, with a cold pattern that will set up over the Great Lakes for a few days and bring some snow, probably," Adam said.

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