Pines Peak Family Ski Area Snow Report

567 FXUS63 KMQT 140657 AFDMQT Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Marquette MI 257 AM EDT Fri Aug 14 2026 .KEY MESSAGES... - Widespread moderate rain chances (40-60%) Saturday afternoon into Sunday, along with low thunderstorm chances (15%) during the overnight hours. Severe weather is not expected at this time. - High temperatures are expected to be in the mid-70s to low 80s into next week, with low temperatures in the 50s to low 60s. && .DISCUSSION... Issued at 257 AM EDT Fri Aug 14 2026 GOES-East Nighttime Microphysics RGB imagery over the UP this morning shows a band of stratus over the south-central and some isolated high cirrus elsewhere, but not much of any impact elsewhere. While a few patches of fog cannot be entirely ruled out, GLAMP guidance suggests probabilities of fog at any given place are around 10 percent, so fog impacts should be minimal. RAP Analysis shows 500mb ridge extending from the Gulf Coast to the Northern Plains flanked by broad troughs over both the East and West coast. The ridging advancing towards the Great Lakes will result in high pressure extending over the UP today and as a result, enough subsidence to keep chances of precipitation 10% or less today. Attention turns upstream to a pair of troughs, a shortwave currently in eastern Colorado and a broader trough currently in Alberta. These troughs will each bring precipitation to the Upper Midwest and northern Ontario regions, but neither individually track particularly close to the UP, leaving the strongest forcing for thunderstorms elsewhere. Additionally, the CO shortwave looks to track directly south of the UP, interrupting the potential Gulf connection of moisture transport to supply the Canadian trough. PWATs still surge to around 1.5 inches, which is above the 90th percentile of climatology, but the UP will miss out on the 2+ inch PWATs that the HREF projects as far north as Green Bay. With suboptimal forcing and moisture supply, the rainfall totals have trended down slightly. LREF 75th percentile rainfall (so, a little higher than the average solution) by Sunday evening is about a quarter to a third of an inch, with the 90th percentile (reasonable wettest scenario) still showing half to three quarters of an inch of rain. On the dry end of scenarios, the 10th and 25th percentiles do at least show measurable rain for the entire UP, but it may not be a wetting rain as even the 25th percentile is around a tenth of an inch or less. While any rainfall will be welcome to the UP which is running a half inch to an inch below the August normal precipitation pace, a little more precip would have been even more helpful. The thunderstorm threat remains present, but unlikely to be severe as Euro ensemble mean MUCAPE is around 100-350 J/kg, though peaking in the overnight Saturday into Sunday period, so thunderstorms would have to be well-forced and elevated in nature. With only moderate shear (around 30 knots mean sfc-500mb shear), severe weather remains unlikely. While ensemble spread sharply increases on the pattern that follows, it is generally expected that by Sunday evening and through Monday night, ridging resumes in the wake of the trough, leading to dry weather. Ensembles are beginning to coalesce around a deep 500mb closed low in the vicinity of Hudson Bay that will send a trough to the Upper Great Lakes Tuesday. While there is considerable spread in the details, confidence in at least a wetting rainfall (0.1"/24hr) has increased to 50-75%, with ridging behind the trough expected to bring more dry weather for the back half of the week. && .AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SATURDAY/... Issued at 121 AM EDT Fri Aug 14 2026 VFR conditions will prevail through the TAF period under high pressure. Will continue to leave out mention of fog formation with probabilities only around 10% (and if any vis/ceiling reductions occur, they should be short-lived). Expect light and variable winds overnight, followed by winds fluctuating from the NE to the ESE at around 5-10kts for the daytime hours before becoming light again tonight. && .MARINE... Issued at 257 AM EDT Fri Aug 14 2026 Winds remain at or below 20 kt through this morning. As surface high pressure settles over the Lake Superior vicinity this evening, northeast wind gusts ramp up to 20-30 kt out of the northeast over the far west end of the lake as the pressure gradient tightens with developing low pressure to the southwest and winds funneling to the east and west of the Bayfield Peninsula and Apostle Islands. Wind gusts again relax sub-20 kt overnight into Saturday. Saturday afternoon immediately east of the Keweenaw Peninsula, southeast wind gusts to 20-25 kt will form ahead of an approaching disturbance. Winds fall sub-20 kt as the disturbance passes, but reinvigorate to near 25 kt northwesterlies over the east half of the lake behind the front. Uncertainty then grows in the details, but winds are broadly expected to remain sub-20 kt into next week. && .MQT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... Upper Michigan... None. Lake Superior... None. Lake Michigan... None. && $$ DISCUSSION...GS AVIATION...GS MARINE...GS