textproduct: Gaylord

KEY MESSAGES

- Cold temperatures continue to prevail this week.

- Sneaky lake effect snow potential in some shoreline locales tonight.

- Next more widespread snow chance builds Monday evening into Tuesday with a clipper system.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/

Issued at 155 AM EST Sun Jan 25 2026

Core of arctic airmass slowly being dispatched to the east tonight, as broad surface high pressure of about 1042mb is situated across upstate New York into southern Quebec. As such, slowly beginning to see return flow materialize... but for the time being, largely contending with land-lake breeze dynamics. Will see another pretty cold night across the interior of both northern lower and eastern upper where winds have decoupled... lows possibly poking into the negative teens, especially if return flow holds off til daybreak. Elsewhere, cloud cover should moderate overnight lows to a few degrees above or below zero. Heading into the day today, anticipating that most spots hold largely dry with a few flurries. Exceptions will be across NW lower and western Chippewa county. As a large system delivers a wintry haymaker from downstate to the Tennessee Valley to the eastern seaboard, surface winds should abruptly flip N to NNE through the day... albeit quite light. This will direct some lake effect snow showers toward Grand Traverse Bay and Whitefish Point. Accumulations should generally hold under an inch through the evening. In addition, the synoptic precipitation shield from that larger system to the south may try to leak into the Saginaw Bay region, which could deliver a dusting of snow to Gladwin, Arenac, Ogemaw, Iosco, and Alcona counties through this evening.

Tonight: A bit of a wild card to keep in mind for tonight is the development of land-lake convergent bands of snow over the lakes through the day today. CAMs have started to creep in with a little bit of a subtle signal suggesting some of these mature features could clip some immediate lakeshore regions with some pretty stellar snowfall rates later tonight as they advect toward the coasts in conjunction with broad cyclonic flow. In particular, CAMs are honing in on the Leelanau to Manistee shores (perhaps clipping Grand Traverse), far eastern Presque Isle county through northeastern Iosco county (Oscoda proper), and Whitefish Point. Conceptually, this solution does make sense given the flow regimes. Considering the subtle moderation of the airmass, this could briefly produce very efficient snowfall in the event the heaviest of snowfall can clip the shorelines. As of now, not enough to dive into headlines for this cycle... but should be noted that if these snows can leak inland, it may drum up advisory level snowfall in some areas... especially if mesolow characteristics can be maintained as these features advect to shore. More details to come.

LONG TERM /MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/

Issued at 155 AM EST Sun Jan 25 2026

Cold-dominant pattern set to continue well through the long term, constituted by highs in the teens and lows in the single digits to below zero across the region. Will see a clipper system deliver a round of light snow, possibly with some lake enhancement, Monday into Tuesday night. Otherwise, we will be limited to some lingering lake effect snow showers throughout the period. The extent of these lake effect snow showers are questionable owing to expected expansion of ice cover on the lakes, which will help reduce moisture contribution from the lakes, on top of already very cold temperatures limiting dendritic growth processes. Coldest timeframe next week looks to be somewhere between the Wednesday night - Friday timeframe as we see a little bit more "warmth" try to materialize into the upcoming weekend... as highs "torch" into the upper teens and mid 20s.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z MONDAY/

Issued at 1228 PM EST Sun Jan 25 2026

Conditions at KCIU and KPLN remain VFR through the entirety of the TAF period while -SHSN move across KTVC and KMBL this evening breifly reducing VSBY's and CIG's. Conditions improve Monday morning but, active weather to the south will spread cloud cover, dropping cloud bases to around 030 at KAPN, KTVC, and KMBL.

APX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MI...None. MARINE...None.