Munising, Mi. Lake effect clouds just off shore today, photo by Thom Skelding
Winter has arrived across the state, just in time for 2015.
View Tom’s photo bigger and see more in his slideshow.
More weather and more Lake Superior on Michigan in Pictures!
Happy New Year!, photo by Spring Disney
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.”
~Neil Gaiman
Happy New Year everyone! Here’s hoping for health & happiness for all of you, but also a mistake or two as the incomparable Mr. Gaiman prescribes.
Spring Disney shared this photo from Elizabeth Park in Trenton for the 2011 New Year. View it bigger on Flickr and see more (including some absolutely stunning owl photos) in her My Favorites slideshow.
Frozen in Time, photo by photofrenzy2000
2014 will never come this way again, so for better or worse, here are some 2014 highlights from Michigan in Pictures…
The most popular post was Cougar Cam Confirmation, which was published on November 7th. Since I’ve been sounding the “cougars live in Michigan” horn for several years now, it’s gratifying that the DNR is now on board.
With 77,000 views on Facebook, the cougar cam was the most popular post there too, followed very closely by Space Weather and Starbreeze that benefited from the Lake Superior Photo bump!
Shawn of Lake Superior Photo checked in with the second most popular pic, Paradise is the nickname of this place, a photo that features one of the amazing & out-of-the-way Michigan gems that I learned about in 2014.
The third most popular picture & story was one from close to my home, the astonishing The Ice Caves of Leelanau that drew tens of thousands of people to the Leelanau Peninsula last winter to see them. You can click that link to see Ken’s photos or save yourself the time and head over to his site to purchase his book, The Ice Caves of Leelanau.
Weighing in at number four was Winter at Tahquamenon Falls by John McCormick aka MichiganNut. While this photo didn’t make his 2015 wall calendar, a dozen other great ones did!
Closing out the top five was the Blood Moon and the Lunar Eclipse Tetrad by Michael Seabrook. The first two of these four total lunar eclipses are in the books, but April 4 & September 28, 2015 are still to be seen.
The top commented post was Michigan in Pictures is a blog, folks, which I posted after getting a bunch of negative comments after sharing a photo from a group working against the Keystone XL Pipeline coming through Michigan. It made me very happy to get support for protecting the beautiful natural heritage features on Michigan in Pictures from so many readers … and also to share the awesome photo of our cats!
View this photo from December of 2010 at the St. Joseph Lighthouse bigger and jump into photofrenzy2000’s slideshow for more awesome shots!
Engine Engine Number 9, photo by Rudy Malmquist
Back on December 30, 2005 I blogged the first photo to Michigan in Pictures. If you click that link, you can start at the beginning. Be warned though – as of today there’s 2,805 posts!!
Thanks to all of you for staying tuned and here’s hoping for many more years.
Rudy is one of the photographers who’s been contributing since the beginning. He notes that the former Engine House 9 in Grand Rapids is now the Mitten Brewing Company. View his photo background big and see more in his slideshow.
More birthday fun on Michigan in Pictures.
Untitled, photo by Jeff Caverly
Whatever you’re celebrating, I hope that you get the very best from this holiday season and that your life is filled with at least as much beauty & magic as is in this photo!
View Jeff’s photo background big and see more in his slideshow.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac shares that winter begins with the Winter Solstice at 6:03 PM EST tomorrow (Sunday, December 21):
Winter inspires both joy and woe. Some people can’t wait for the cooler weather, snow, skiing and ice skating, curling up by a fire, and the holiday spirit. Other people dislike the frigid temperatures, blizzards, and wild weather.
The word solstice comes from the Latin words for “sun” and “to stand still.” In the Northern Hemisphere, as summer advances to winter, the points on the horizon where the Sun rises and sets advance southward each day; the high point in the Sun’s daily path across the sky, which occurs at local noon, also moves southward each day. At the winter solstice, the Sun’s path has reached its southernmost position. The next day, the path will advance northward. However, a few days before and after the winter solstice, the change is so slight that the Sun’s path seems to stay the same, or stand still. The Sun is directly overhead at “high-noon” on Winter Solstice at the latitude called the Tropic of Capricorn. In the Northern Hemisphere, the solstice days are the days with the fewest hours of sunlight during the whole year.
Definitely check out Liz’s photo bigger and see more in her massive & cool Ice slideshow or (if you prefer) her Abstracts slideshow.
“Winter Blues” Rural Michigan Countryside, photo by John McCormick
Editor’s Note: I inadvertently re-blogged a barn photo by John that I posted last year. This one’s a beauty too though!!
After a promising start, the Great Lakes snow machine has shut down leaving us to wonder if a white Christmas is on the horizon. mLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa seeks to answer that as he looks at three storms headed our way:
The first storm is mostly a rain maker for most of Michigan. As the colder air moves in this Tuesday and Wednesday, some accumulating snow will occur in the U.P. and far northern Lower Michigan. It looks like points north of Gaylord, and into the U.P. will pick up a few inches of snow… Storm number two will be a stronger, moisture laden storm. Right now and for several days in the past, the track has been projected to be to our south.
…The third storm I can see is still quite uncertain since it is about 10 days out into the future. Both of the most widely accepted weather computer models show a storm system dropping southeast out of Canada toward Christmas. This storm could bring a swath of light snow across Michigan around Christmas Day. There is still a lot of uncertainty on the exact track and amount of moisture. Definitely watch this storm with me, as it looks like it is Lower Michigan’s only chance of a white Christmas.
Here’s hoping!
John took this photo in Montcalm County last year on Christmas Day after an 8″ snowfall. View it bigger on Flickr, see more in his Winter slideshow and definitely join 30,000 other fans by tuning into Michigan Nut Photography – it’s one of the best follows on Facebook!
Ice Wine Season, photo by Andrew McFarlane
This morning as I was working on a Facebook post announcing the release of Black Star Farms’ 2013 A Capella Ice Wine, I stumbled upon a cool synchronicity that brought together several of my personal and professional pursuits into such a neat package that I had to share it!
It turns out that exactly one year ago today, I spent a very cold day on the Old Mission Peninsula shooting a photo feature for eatdrinkTC of the ice wine harvest & pressing at Black Star Farms. Ice wine, eiswein in the original German, is a rare dessert wine that requires care and skill to produce and…
While December 11, 2013 was by no means the coldest December 11th on record (that would be 1977 at -11), it was a bone-chilling day with temps hovering around 11 degrees with a wind chill that never got above zero after 9:30 AM.
In short, as Black Star Farms winemaker Vladimir Banov explained, the perfect day for the ice wine harvest.
Ice wine is not made every year, and not by every winery. U.S. law for ice wines specifies that the grapes must be naturally frozen to be sold as ice wine.
To begin, a winery will leave a portion of the harvest to hang. Even under the bird netting, it’s a gamble against mercurial weather and clever creatures. Many years, it will leave the winery with nothing.
In some years however, such as this one, patience is rewarded.
Click through for a photographic look at the ice wine process along with some videos. If you’re interested, here’s information about A Capella Ice Wine.
You can view my photo background big and see more in my Ice Wine at Black Star Farms slideshow.
More wine and more winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures!
Cliffs from below, photo by David Clark
David writes that “The Anvil” is a high point where a white pine somehow makes a living growing out of a crack in the rock. On his blog, Cliffs and Ruins he writes:
This is one of my favorite places along the Cliff range: The Lookout. Apparently different people have different lookouts, but this is what I think of as the Cliff Lookout.
It’s a bit of a hike (no, you don’t have to go straight up the side of the cliffs… but you can if you want), but the view is 100% worth it. You can even see the silhouettes of the Huron Mountains in the distance. The most amazing thing, to me, is that tree — you can see it here. It’s a big old pine growing straight up out of the rock, over the edge of the cliffs.
There’s nothing quite like the solitude at the top of the lookout. When I snowshoed out to the lookout, there weren’t any tracks at all on the trail to the lookout — nor on the trail to the trail! It was one of those feelings which I love when I’m hiking up here — that I’m the first person in years to set foot here and see these sights. It might not be true, but this is still one of my favorite places to go whenever I really need some time alone.
View his photo background bigtacular and see more in his Winter slideshow. You can purchase David’s pics right here.
More winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
A Late November Morning, photo by jiafanxu
Safe travels to you and your guests this Thanksgiving holiday!
View jiafanxu’s photo bigger and see more in their A Late November Morning slideshow.
