News Photo by Steve Schulwitz A group of local hockey players sling a hockey puck around the ice at the small boat harbor in Alpena on Sunday. There was plenty of ice, but like most of the area there was little snow to cause them a burden. There is a chance of snow beginning this afternoon and into Tuesday.

ALPENA — It may seem like Alpena’s snowfall this winter is well below average, but in reality, the area is not far behind where it normally stands..

The area received a brunt of its snow early in the winter, but amounts fell off in January and so far this month leaving the area 6.6 inches below long-term snowfall averages.

The average snowfall from Nov. 1 through Feb. 19 is 54.8 inches, and through Saturday, Alpena has received 48.2 inches.

A potential snow and ice storm forecasted for tonight and tomorrow could eat into the 6.6 inch deficit and narrow the gap between this winter’s snowfall and the average from years past.

The National Weather service says most times when Northeast Michigan received snow, warm weather followed soon after and caused a thaw, which limited the depth on the ground for any long duration of time.

Alpena’s largest dumping of snow was early in December, when on Dec. 5, 10.7 inches of snow fell. A string of warm days when temperatures reached the mid-50s and even 60 degrees only a handful of days later erased the fallout from the storm quickly.

For December, Alpena received a total of 21.3 inches of snow that fell, 4.4 inches above average, but little of it lasted long enough to pile up significantly.

“It is a misconception that we aren’t getting as much snow, and I think that has been the case for the last several years,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Matt Gillen said. “It feels that way because we haven’t had 18 or 20 inches on the ground at one time, but as winter goes along, it all adds up.”

The snow totals plummeted in January and so far in February. The largest one-day accumulation in January was 3.1 inches and the rest of the month there were on-and-off again flurries that equated to the month ending with only 14.4 inches of snow, which is nearly five inches below average for that month.

So far in February, Alpena has received only 5.5 inches of snow, of which 3.3 inches fell Friday and Saturday.

Gillen said he is watching a storm that could begin in Northeast Michigan late Monday afternoon and carry over into Wednesday. He said Alpena is near the transition line, where warmer air meets cooler air and where snow is usually divided from freezing rain or rain, and right now it is difficult to know with certainty what Alpena will receive.

“This is a challenging one to predict and right now there are several ways it can go,” he said. “Alpena could get all snow, or, freezing rain, then snow, and transition back to ice. Either way it looks like it is going to be sloppy.”

Gillen said he expects most of northern Michigan to be under some type of weather advisory before the storm arrives and the details of it should be more clear.

As the month of March draws near, Gillen said it is likely that there will be more cold and snow, but overall long-range indicators predict temperatures will be warmer than normal. But, he said, it is unlikely that it will mirror March of last year, when Alpena received less than an inch of snow and temperatures were 6.6 degrees above average. Last March temperatures reached the 70 degree plateau on several occasions and 50 degree and 60 degree days weren’t uncommon.

“That was an anomaly and for those types of numbers to repeat is unlikely,” Gillen said. ”