UNDATED (WKZO-AM/FM) — It was another messy day of weather in west Michigan on Saturday, as the snow melted and the rain fell.
It has been a cold and snowy March so far, but typical of the kind of weather you would expect in Michigan at this time of the year.
Western Michigan University Meteorologist Robert Ruhf said it follows a February that made the record books as the warmest on record. He said the region went for an extended period in February with no snow at all, the longest he has ever recorded in that month.
Ruhf said, with the spring equinox arriving on Monday, all this cooler weather has been a good thing.
He said it reduces the risk of early budding in west Michigan’s berry patches, vineyards and orchards and cuts the threat that a freeze might damage them.
That is not to say that it still couldn’t happen. In 2012, fruit plants were tricked into budding early and the crops were nearly wiped out by hard freezes that followed.
Climatologists are saying that the unusual warmth and the spring storms, one that tossed off tornadoes in the border counties and another that knocked out power to over a million homes in Michigan, are both consistent with the more severe storms that come with climate change.
