Michigan Near Top Of List For Worst Winters In U.S.

How would you rank Michigan’s winter, compared to the other states?

Thrillist did just that; ranked all 50 states on the level of how horrible the winters are; and Michigan came in a solid #2.   Of course Hawaii ranked #50, meaning they have the best winters, Indiana came in #16, mostly due to the lake effect snow the northwest corner of the states gets. Ohio came in #14 and Wisconsin #7.

To rank the severity of each state's winters, they looked at weather, average winter temps, winter sports team success rates, activities to do in the winter and effectiveness of the transportation departments for each state.

I actually agree with most of their assessment of Michigan winters, (from thrillist.com):

"Winter in Michigan begins well before Thanksgiving and stretches far past Easter, which makes for four-to-six wearisome months of always-gray, always-cold, always-drizzly, but-rarely-snowy-in-a-good-way misery. Some other states may see colder temps or more snow, but Michigan winters are unrivaled for their utter lack of sunshine...."

 

 

"You do not look forward to outdoor winter recreation because there is none. You might go bowling. You probably put on weight....."

So far my first Michigan winter is well, gray.  It’s always cloudy and gray around here! I went home to Arkansas for Christmas and actually asked “why is it so sunny here all the time?”  and it was actually raining when I asked that.  But it’s so much lighter EVERYWHERE else!

I’m surprised that it’s dark when I get up at 7 a.m. and starts getting dark just shortly after 4 p.m.  Are we secretly in Alaska?  NO, because at least then we’d have glaciers and polar bears! (They have polar bears in Alaska, right?)   Instead, we just have bitter cold and dirty snow.

Speaking of the cold, that’s been kind of an adjustment. Where I grew up, in Fayetteville, Ark., it was 65 degrees on Christmas Day.  Here in Michigan, it gets windy and bitterly cold, which is fine when you have a blizzard happening, but here, it’s just Tuesday night.

And if we’re talking about the snow, I haven’t seen enough of it yet to justify the cold that comes blowing in from Canada.  I mean c’mon, our lighthouses froze WAY before we had a huge snow storm, that's COLD!!

Thank God I started working in Michigan in the spring… I remember how great this state does at summer, if we can just hurry through the winter part.

The full list and what else they said about Michigan can be found at the link below: