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Wintry weather returns to West Michigan this weekend
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Following a stretch of warmer weather which helped to reduce most of our snow to puddles, winter has made its return to West Michigan. FRIDAY: WINDY, BECOMING COLDER A wind advisory has been issued for counties near and south of I-96 effective through 9 p.m. Friday night. Sustained winds from the southwest sweep through, reaching 15-25 mph with gusts peaking between 35-45 mph. This could blow around loose objects, create a few power outages, and make for difficult driving, especially in high-profile vehicles. Download the free Storm Team 8 weather app Temperatures will slide down near 30 degrees as drizzle gives way to light snow showers. Snow accumulations will be minimal on Friday, but travel may be tricky at times due to lowered visibility with the snow falling in tandem with strong winds. Slippery spots are likely to pop up as wet surfaces freeze over. SATURDAY: CLOUDY & QUIET Saturday will bring overcast conditions to West Michigan with an occasional snow flurry. Temperatures are expected to lift just past the freezing point with highs generally topping off at or near 35 degrees. SUNDAY: SNOW SHOWERS, WIND PICKS BACK UP Low pressure circulating near Saginaw Bay will help to produce a fresh round of snow courtesy of a northwest flow. Snow showers will stay fairly light in terms of intensity, with the heaviest snow likely to fall on Sunday morning before the bands tear apart leading into Sunday evening. Inside woodtv.com: Radar Snow totals are expected to range between a trace and 2 inches for the weekend. Snow will become focused into far Southwest Michigan Sunday night going into Monday morning, and portions of Berrien, Van Buren and Cass counties may wind up with slightly greater amounts as the snow lingers on. The wind is also expected to strengthen once again on Sunday, with gusts approaching 30 mph directed out of the northwest. Looking ahead, Monday should bring more cool and quiet conditions before another system delivers snow and mixed precipitation on Tuesday night and Wednesday. Stay with Storm Team 8 as we track the latest developments.
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Snow Sport Report: Feb. 19, 2026
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — It's been a great winter for snow activities, but even snowy and cold winters occasionally have a thaw. This one has been significant. The warm temperatures and rain have been mostly confined to Lower Michigan, and that's where the snowpack has taken the biggest hit. The map below shows the significant snow melt that occurred Wednesday. Notice the northern sections of the state avoided it. The warm temperatures this past week eviscerated the snow pack across Central and Southern Lower Michigan. Areas across the Upper Peninsula held onto and even gained some some. Marquette had a record snowfall Wednesday of 11.6 inches, while Grand Rapid hit a record high of 60 degrees! A pattern change arrives Friday that will swing all of Michigan back to winter this weekend. Most of the snow will be confined to Northern Michigan Saturday. The entire state will have a chance of light snow Sunday. After two-year gap, Grand Haven restoring sidewalk snow removal Snowfall will be rather meager across Lower Michigan, but at least we won't be melting any. Northern Michigan stands the best chance of having to shovel. Download the free Storm Team 8 weather app SKIERS Cannonsburg, Bittersweet and Timber Ridge took a major hit this week with the exceptional warmth. Resorts to the north melted very little and even gained some snow. SCHUSS: Some of the best skiing in the state can be found here and that's one of the reasons my family and I are heading up there this weekend. Nearly 13 feet of snow has fallen this season with all of the runs open. Hours are Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Alpine tubing runs from Friday 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can purchase discount lift tickets on "Super Sundays" between 12 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. with $60 lift tickets that include rentals and a group lesson. On Saturday, the resort will hosts the White Pine Stampede, one of the longest cross country ski events in Michigan. CANNONSBURG: Mother Nature has not been kind this week but Cannonsburg has weathered the warm temperatures quite well. The resort is running at 82%. Hours are Friday 12 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tubing with reservations only runs Friday 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. BITTERSWEET: The warm temperatures and rain took a toll at Bittersweet. Call ahead Friday to see if they will be open. My hunch is yes with colder air and snow arriving. Normal hours are Friday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. TIMBER RIDGE: Call ahead but their website indicates they will likely be opening at 4 p.m. Friday. If they do, I'm confident they'll be open Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN: Average base is over 4 feet! This has the Crystal resort running 97% of their 59 runs. Hours of operation are Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CABERFAE PEAKS: Over 10 feet of snow has fallen over the resort this season. This has 96% open with hours Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. THE HIGHLANDS: More than 125 inches of snow have fallen over the resort this season and you can access all their slopes. Hours of operation are Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and resuming 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. BOYNE MOUNTAIN: If you like black diamond runs or the relaxing ones, you should be able to find them with all 65 runs open. Hours of operation are Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and resuming 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. NUB'S NOB: Is in tip top shape with around 120 inches for the season. Not a surprise, then, that all slopes are open. Hours are Friday 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. TREE TOPS: Nearly 123 inches of snow this season has the resort rocking at 100%. Hours are Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Extreme tubing Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. SNOWMOBILERS My big snowmobile trip was a week ago and it was a blast. We knocked out The Ice Bridge (pictured above), Keweenaw Peninsula and the Porcupine Mountains. Just under 20 hours of driving but worth it. If you're skiing or snowmobiling, temperatures won't be too warm or cold this weekend, mostly in the range of 20s and 30s. Despite the warmth across Lower Michigan, the northern sections of the state held on to a lot of their snow. For instance, on Wednesday, Grand Rapids had a record high of 60 while Marquette received a record amount of snow of 11.6 inches. My suggestion for the best trail riding would be the Upper Peninsula. There area few spots near Gaylord, East Jordan, Indian River and the Straits that I'm sure you can find some decent trails, but the other side of the bridge is where you'll find the best (as long as the groomers can keep up). After the "spring in February" episode, temperatures will return closer to average next week. The latest 8-14 day temperature outlook has warmer then average temperatures over Michigan and much of the country for the tail end of February and first few days of March. The models I've been looking seem to be considerable colder than this look. Stay tuned. This is the time of year when you can get more messy systems that involve all types of precipitation. The pattern does look semi-active, so we'll see how it plays out. Sign up for the Storm Team 8 daily forecast newsletter The Snow Sport Report is sponsored by Schuss Mountain at Shanty Creek Resort.
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Mercury conjunction with the moon seen over West Michigan
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — It's rare for winter weather to cooperate enough for West Michigan to glimpse an astronomical event but on Wednesday, clear skies over most of the region allowed for good viewing of the Mercury conjunction with the moon. The waxing crescent moon had only 3.6% illumination, appearing next to Mercury in the evening sky, fairly low on the western horizon. Mercury was located slightly north of the moon in the western sky. A Mercury conjunction with the moon is not particularly rare, but can occasionally be difficult due to the planet's usual low placement on the horizon in the night sky. Conjunctions are often obscured by the sun's glare, making them hard to see. On the evening of Feb. 19, the moon will be in conjunction with a different planet. Saturn will appear right next to the moon, slightly south in the western sky. If the moon were a clock face, Saturn would likely appear around the 8 p.m. direction. Thursday evening's moon will be a waxing crescent. It will rise in the eastern sky at 8:29 a.m. and set at 9:04 p.m. in the western sky. The conjunction will be the most visible in the hour and a half just after sunset. Thursday's cloud cover may obscure the view.
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February thunder? Storm chances arrive with warmup
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A mid-February warmup is bringing one last day in the 50s for West Michigan. This warm up favors another chance for showers and storms tonight. STORM CHANCES Ask Ellen: Is it possible to see a mirage on Lake Michigan in winter? A few isolated showers and thunderstorms remain possible for Thursday afternoon as a warm front continues to lift across the Midwest. These showers will likely be south of I-96 with minimal risk for severe weather. Inside woodtv.com: Radar The greatest chance for a thunderstorm arrives after sunset. Rain showers will be heavy for some overnight. West Michigan remains free of any severe risk from the Storm Prediction Center. An enhanced risk (level 3 of 5) is in place across portions of Indiana and Illinois where an isolated tornado may occur. It's not impossible for West Michigan to see severe weather in the month of February. The most recent severe weather occurred in 2024, producing an EF-1 tornado in Marshall. Download the free Storm Team 8 weather app Behind this system, winter makes a return. Temperatures will plummet down to near freezing into the weekend, with a potential of light snow showers.
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Ask Ellen: Is it possible to see a mirage on Lake Michigan in winter?
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Lake Michigan is known for producing mirages when conditions are right, and on very rare occasions, that can include during the wintertime. For a mirage to form, we need open water and a very stable day. This means a day with very little wind and plenty of sunshine. In West Michigan, it can be hard to have a day with open water, sunshine, and very little wind during our winter months. Still, if we get the combination in winter or early spring, the setup can refract and reflect light in a strange way, making things look as if they are hovering above the water, like this ice shelf that is displaced too high above the horizon. After reviewing satellite imagery, we can confirm this is the ice shelf Sherry Idsinga spotted, but it appears to be feet above the water rather than floating directly on it. This is a superior mirage. The light refracting and reflecting off the object travels through the different-density air masses, allowing people at the shore to see the ice in a strange position. Is it possible to see across Lake Michigan? Normally, it is impossible to see across Lake Michigan. But when conditions are right, a mirage can make people see objects on the other shore. The same day Idsinga posted about the hovering ice shelf, Rick Vuyst spotted a strange, tall object jutting up from the lake's surface. Vuyst says he searched online, checking barge-tracking sites to see if it was a type of ship. The only possible match at the time, the Frontenac, looked nothing like the object he was seeing. That's when another photographer realized the object looked exactly like Wind Pointe Lighthouse, near Racine, Wisconsin. Sure enough, the mirage allowed Vuyst to see the lighthouse, located more than 80 miles from his position in Muskegon.
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Ask Ellen: Was the harsh January cold caused by the polar vortex?
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Bitterly cold conditions can be a result of more than one thing, and in the case of January's deep freeze, the blame shouldn't rest on the polar vortex. The polar vortex is always present. Sometimes it is in a strong phase, and sometimes it is in a disrupted phase. The polar vortex resides at both poles, far above the surface at 10 to 30 miles above the ground. The polar vortex is always present, but we tend to talk about it in the United States when a disrupted phase causes the stratospheric winds to weaken and the intense cold at the poles to wobble down to lower latitudes. It is not always possible to tell where the disrupted cold will impact. Sometimes the intense cold hits the United States; other times it will roll into parts of Europe. Here is the comparison between a strong vortex (which keeps the cold air at the poles) and a weak vortex (which allows cold air to spill away from the poles). One way to monitor polar vortex activity is to track winds in the stratosphere. Changes in the wind strength can signal a weakening event, which could lead to a cold outbreak in North America. In late January, the deep freeze of 2026 was surprisingly not related to the polar vortex. Stratospheric winds were registered as strong. The red line on the chart below shows the polar vortex strength from 2025 into 2026. The only recorded weakening of the polar vortex occurred in late November. So, what caused the January cold to be so intense? It was the result of a negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation. The Arctic Oscillation is a climate pattern established by winds circulating above the ground at 55 degrees north latitude, and it can significantly impact winter weather in the Great Lakes and the Eastern U.S. Evidence shows a strongly negative mode in January, when Michigan experienced its coldest conditions in seven years. When the Arctic Oscillation is in a weak phase, cold air can't be contained north of 55 degrees latitude and often spills into the eastern U.S., bringing bitter chills and accumulating snow. Winter weather is a combination of dozens of these teleconnections, patterns, and influences. Each winter season is so unique due to the infinite number of combinations these patterns can produce.
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Ask Ellen: What are these splashes of rainbow in the sky?
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Occasionally, near sunrise and sunset, the atmosphere can produce beautiful optical effects, such as rainbow-like splashes on either side of the sun. These splashes are called "sundogs," and they often look like diffused rainbows equidistant from the sun. Sun dogs will always have the red part of the rainbow facing the sun. Occasionally, conditions may only be right for you to see one of the two sun dogs. If cloud cover is too thick on one side of the sun, it will mute the effect or block it completely. Occasionally, sun dogs will appear to be connected by a giant halo around the sun. This is called a 22-degree halo, named for the angle at which light is refracted off of hexagonal ice crystals in the sky. For sun dogs or ice halos to form, there usually needs to be a thin layer of uniform ice crystals in the sky. These optical phenomena rarely happen in the middle of the day, as conditions are most favorable early and late when the sun is lower on the horizon.
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Storm Prediction Center makes changes to its convective outlook
(WHNT) — The Storm Prediction Center will be making changes to its convective outlook. The SPC issues severe weather outlooks for the entire country. The new changes will take effect on March 3, 2026. Currently, the center issues outlooks on a scale from marginal (1), to slight (2), enhanced (3), moderate (4), and high (5). The marginal risk is shown in dark green, the slight in yellow, the enhanced in orange, the moderate in red, and the high in pink. Within these risk outlooks, the SPC breaks down tornado, wind, and hail probabilities, with a hatched area indicating where there would be a 10 percent chance of seeing two-inch hail or larger, 75 mph wind or greater, or EF2 or stronger tornadoes within 25 miles of any point in that hatched area. The new outlook will stick with the same color and threat level, although it will introduce intensity levels within each hazard's outlook. For example, in the tornado probability maps, instead of the standard "hatched" area, the SPC will use three different line patterns to denote intensity levels as seen in the image below. The Storm Prediction Center posted this on X regarding the intensity levels: The hope is to better communicate the threat level in future events.
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Chief Meteorologist Ellen Bacca (and husband Mark) welcomed their first child over the weekend, with the birth of Piper Sunny. Check out these sweet pictures<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hurricane Lee continues to slowly track toward the United States. Click here for the latest on intensity and path<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saturday brought plenty of sunshine and calm conditions. Bill’s Blog dives into what is currently the calmest day of 2023.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
WEATHER WEAR<\/strong>
Rain Jacket
Umbrella<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SUNRISE<\/strong> 7:17 a.m.
SUNSET<\/strong> 7:59 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.
PSALM 146:5 NIVGrand Rapids / Lakeshore
Kalamazoo
Battle Creek
Benton Harbor