Despite lingering frigid temperatures and a Wednesday night ice storm that gave local schools their eighth inclement weather cancellation of the 2024-25 academic year, winter is officially over. And my, what a winter it was! After the warmest December-through-February stretch ever recorded in northern Michigan, Traverse City saw one of its snowiest winters in history, and had the banner ski season to prove it. To commemorate the arrival of springtime, The Ticker crunched the numbers on winter 2024-25, comparing them to last year’s stats to show just how different this season really was.

140.5: Traverse City’s season-to-date snowfall, in inches, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). That’s 150 percent of the normal-to-date total, of 93.9 inches, and more than three feet more than the entire-season average of 101 inches. For reference, Traverse City had recorded just 73 inches of snowfall at this same point in the season one year ago. TC’s record winter was 1995-96, when a whopping 191.2 inches of snow blanketed the Cherry Capital.

Fourth: Where this winter ranks on the list of all-time snowiest winters, per NWS. Those rankings only take into account the “meteorological winter,” which runs from December 1 through February 28. During that three-month period, Traverse City tallied 125.1 inches of snowfall. Last year, TC got just 41 percent as much snow (51.9 inches) during its meteorological winter.

48.2: Traverse City’s December snowfall, in inches, marking the second snowiest December on record. An average December would see more than two feet less in snowfall. February’s 38.4 inches of snow, meanwhile, made it the third snowiest February on record. (January’s 38.5 inches didn’t even land it in the top 10.)

192.2: Inches of snowfall recorded in Gaylord since the start of the season. That beats Gaylord’s previous all-time "snowiest season" record of 185.6 inches, from 2006-07. Much of the record is thanks to November 29, when Gaylord got 24.8 inches of snow in a single 24-hour period – its “snowiest calendar date on record,” according to the NWS.

25.6: The average temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, for Traverse City’s entire December 2024 through February 2025 stretch, per the NWS. That’s a massive eight degrees colder than last year’s average of 33.6 degrees. 2023-24 was the warmest winter ever in Traverse City, and is the only winter on record with an above-freezing temperature for its overall average. Overall, though, 2024-25 will still go down as a warmer-than-typical winter – even if it only outstripped the long-term average by 0.3 degrees.

52.23: Percentage of the Great Lakes that were covered in ice at the winter 2024-25 maximum, which occurred on February 21. That’s a hair under the average winter, which sees about 53 percent ice cover. But it marks a huge increase over last winter, which peaked at 16.02 percent. Notably, the ice cover plummeted almost immediately after the February 21 peak, dropping to 38.46 percent the next day. No other day of the winter saw more than 50 percent ice coverage, and only two other days (February 19 and 20) were in the 40s.

8.19: Current Great Lakes ice cover as of press time on Friday. Typically, in late March, around 20 percent of the entire Great Lakes basin still has ice cover.

2: Number of days this winter that set record high temperature records in Traverse City, according to Extreme Weather Watch. Those days were January 30, which hit a record 50 degrees; and February 24, when the mercury made it to 51. For comparison, last winter set or tied 11 high temperature records. Neither winter recorded any record lows, and no year has done so since 2020, which hit all-time coldest temperatures on both May 13 (24 degrees) and September 19 (33 degrees).

51: Peak temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, recorded in Traverse City during the meteorological winter. As mentioned above, that seasonal high occurred on February 24. It’s a far cry from last winter, which saw a 73-degree day on February 27. Famously, that temperature spike was Traverse City’s first-ever 70-degree February day, its earliest-ever occurrence of a 70-degree day in the calendar year, and the hottest day ever recorded in a Traverse City meteorological winter. On the other side of the spectrum, this winter’s coldest day was a tie between January 21 and February 12, both of which saw temps fall to -3.

8: Number of times Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) cancelled school this winter due to inclement weather. Four of those snow days happened in December, one each in January and February, and two in March, including this past Thursday. For reference, the district only had nine snow days combined across the previous three school years. Barring a freak April, though, this year’s tally will still fall short of the record 11 cancellations the district had in 2018-19.

87: Number of days between when Mt. Holiday opened for the 2024-25 season on December 20 and its final day of ski season this past Sunday, March 16. Comparatively, one year ago, Executive Director Jim Pearson estimated to The Ticker that Holiday “probably had a month total of tubing, maybe two weeks of skiing with a few runs open” during the 2023-24 season. Hickory Hills also had its final day of the season this past Sunday, wrapping up a 66-day season – 20 days longer than last year.

$230,000: Ski slope revenues for Mt. Holiday this season, up from just $80,000 last season. The ski area’s restaurant revenues got an even bigger boost, coming in at $391,000 for the winter season, compared to $71,000 for the same period last year. Per Pearson, traffic peaked on President’s Day weekend. “We did almost $10,000 in the first 2-3 hours that Saturday,” he says, noting that the ski area completely sold out of rental equipment that day.

2: Mt. Holiday’s base of snow, in feet, which covered the slopes consistently throughout the season. “And there were definitely spots where we had 6-8 feet of snow,” Pearson says. He credits both the favorable winter weather conditions and Holiday’s brand-new arsenal of snow guns, which he detailed to The Ticker last fall.

7,700: Approximate number of riders Mt. Holiday tallied out on its tubing hill this winter, from 1,800 different bookings. Last season, the ski area got less than half of that tubing traffic: 3,400 tubers from 717 bookings.

446: Kids who participated in Mt. Holiday’s “Holiday Race Team” program this season, versus 224 last year.

$480,000: The amount of money, in SBA loans, that Mt. Holiday took out in the past year to survive to this season. “We took a disaster relief loan after last season, and we have to start paying that back, so another good season like this one would definitely help us recoup that money,” Pearson says.