LANSING, MI — The first real blasty of winter weather is coming in time for Thanksgiving. The National Weather Service offices have issued blizzard warnings across the U.P. and turned winter storm watches into winter storm warnings for most of west Michigan through Thanksgiving.
The weather turns bad later today by early afternoon. The blizzard warning goes into effect Wednesday morning and continues to Thanksgiving evening for the Lake Superior counties of the western U.P. Snow amounts up to 28 inches and 55 mph gusts could make travel very difficult to impossible until late Friday. Weather officials are discouraging travel across the U.P.
Traveling into west and northern Michigan will be difficult, too. The winter storm warning now covers the Traverse City area north to Gaylord and across to the Big Rapids area. There is also a winter storm warning for the Kalamazoo area in SW Michigan. The winter storm warning area could have a total of six inches to 10 inches of snow and winds gusting up to 45 mph. Lake effect snow will be heavy later Wednesday afternoon…