Updated March 15, 2026 at 1:35 PM EDT
An ice storm warning has been issued by the National Weather Service for the following counties in northern Lower Michigan: Antrim, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Crawford, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Montmorency, Otsego and Presque Isle.
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National Weather Service forecasters are continuing to monitor the storm and you can find their most recent predictions and observations here.
Authorities in several counties warned people to skip unnecessary travel. In Presque Isle County, the sheriff's office warned people to stay off the roads altogether.
"This storm is a DANDY and the road commission is struggling, they can't see or keep up with this storm. First responders are having a hard time responding to calls as well. 911 calls are steadily coming in," said a Facebook post from the Presque Isle County Sheriff's Office. "Please help us out by staying off the roads. Presque Isle Sheriff Office hasn't seen anything like this in a long time!!"
Officials have said that while this storm is reason for concern and caution, it's different than the one that devastated the region in late March a year ago.
"This time we're expecting a quicker shot of the freezing rain and it should switch over to snow a lot sooner than it did last year," said Faith Fredrickson, meteorologist in the Gaylord office of the National Weather Service. She spoke to IPR at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Forecasts call for up to a half-inch of ice, with winds gusting as high as 40 miles per hour across the region. Those two things in combination can lead to downed power lines and tree branches.
Icing happens when falling precipitation moves through layers of air that are at different temperatures.
"Temperatures above the surface are warm enough to melt any of the (falling) snow into rain, and then it falls into a colder layer of air just above the surface," Fredrickson said. "That layer's not thick enough to refreeze it completely, so it stays liquid and then it freezes on contact."
In other words, it doesn't have time to refreeze on the way down, but the temperature at ground level is cold enough to freeze whatever has landed, which results in a coating of ice, rather than ice pellets or snow.
Snowfall totals, meanwhile, were expected between 4 and 6 inches in the Traverse City area, deepening as you head north. The Tip of the Mitt region was expecting about 18 inches of snow.
Two or three feet of snow is possible across the Upper Peninsula.
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