'Up-and-down weather:' Spring rollercoaster in full swing

Mar. 25—TRAVERSE CITY — Spring is off to a moody start across the northwest Lower Peninsula, with sunny days interspersed with cold, rainy and even snowy ones.

"We've certainly had our spells of up-and-down weather," said National Weather Service Meteorologist Matt Gillen.

Take March 12, when the high temperature in Traverse City was 18 degrees, Gillen said. Less than a week later on March 16, the high was 63. It was the midpoint of three days of spring-ish weather — the longest Traverse City has seen so far.

Forecasts point to the up-and-down weather continuing into the first week of April, Gillen said. Snow is expected Saturday following an overnight winter weather advisory.

Then Sunday's forecast in the low to mid-20s is about 20 degrees below the day's average of 45, Gillen said. Temperatures climb back up into the 40s on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by another cool-down.

Right now, cold air swooping down from Canada is blanketing Michigan, and the weather is the result of the typical battle between that cold air and warmer air to the south, Gillen said. Eventually the warm air will win out.

"Until then, those periods of cold air and occasional winter weather is certainly possible across the Great Lakes," he said. "We're just sort of in that perfect spot for cold air to funnel down into this region."

Rollercoaster weather has maple syrup producers' season opening in fits and starts. Joe Woods of Out of the Woods Farm, between Elk Rapids and Rapid City, said his spring has been a slow one so far, although he knows of other syrup makers off to a better start.

The farm has about 2,000 taps and makes 600-800 gallons of syrup in a typical year, although Woods said he's still ramping up. The ideal 24 hours — 42 degrees and sunny by day, below freezing at night — has been seldom seen as Lake Michigan's influence kept it colder and cloudier.

"We've really only been having anything decent for the last week or so," he said.

It's about two weeks later than Out of the Woods Farm's typical start, Woods said. He was hoping to see the sap run Friday ahead of an open house he's hosting Saturday and Sunday, part of the Michigan Maple Weekend.

A late start, but nothing out of the ordinary, Woods said. So far the trees look good. No early warm-ups mean the trees aren't budding early, and once they bud, the sugaring season is over.

Max Lown in Kingsley agreed, and said fears of a bad season look to have been overblown.

"Everybody had expected a late-February sap run and we just didn't get it, so we thought it was going to be pretty bad, and of course you never know what's going to happen until it's over," he said.

Lown said he's been making about 200 to 250 gallons of syrup the past few years from 1,100 taps. He noted the current season is a lot like those he saw 30 years ago — starting in early March instead of the third week of February.

Uncooperative weather has Lown off to a "slow but steady" start, with warm days not giving way to overnight freezes, or freezing weather sticking around. But he's cautiously optimistic, especially if cool weather keeps the trees from budding.

So, too, are some fruit farmers in the region, and for much the same reason.

A late freeze in 2021 devastated King Orchard's cherry crops, with the Central Lake-area farm harvesting 25 percent of its typical sweet cherry yield and 10 percent for tarts, said Juliette King McAvoy, King Orchards' vice president of marketing and sales. The farm has more than 140 acres of cherries, apples and other stone fruit.

"For fruit farmers in the area, we like to have a very slow, gradual warm-up in the spring, and so this weather has been shaping up nicely," she said.

Isaiah Wunsch echoed this. His family farm of about 800 acres of mostly cherries and apples on Old Mission Peninsula looks to be fine, so long as temperatures don't climb too high — anything above the mid-50s is worrisome, and above the mid-60s is downright terrifying.

He's still concerned about the possibility of a late freeze, especially if warmer days heat up the water in Grand Traverse Bay. That could blunt the bay's cooling effect that keeps trees from budding too soon.

At the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center near Suttons Bay, the trees look dormant and the forecast looks "nasty," said Nikki Rothwell, the center's coordinator and a Michigan State University Extension fruit specialist. That has the research center staff "really excited."

"I think we had a good cool-down in the winter and a good warm-up so far in the spring, so I think we're in good shape," she said.

But there's a ways to go, Rothwell, acknowledged.

So too did King McAvoy.

"One thing my dad always says is, this time of year we still have 100 percent of a crop," she said. "So as far as we know we still have a full crop out there, but like I said, there's still a long way to go."