IN BIG SNOW COUNTRY YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT THE FOLLOWING
Consider all of the things that Big Snow Country does NOT have, which pretty much all other areas in the Midwest and South, and which parts of the Northeast do have to one extent or another:Tornadoes and the threat of them, which can drive you to pull out all the hair on your head or some such self-destruction. Tornado watches essentially never reach the counties along Lake Superior. There are never any tornados in Big Snow Country.
Straight Line Winds from very severe thunderstorms and in conjunction with near misses from tornados (brief lasting, but can be in excess of 100 mph). Neither severe thunderstorms nor straight line winds ever happen in Big Snow Country. The worst thunder storms in Big Snow Country would be considered wimpy storms in much of the rest of the Midwest and in the South.
Wind Storms in general, typically lasting 10-20 hours, generally in the late winter and in the spring; with sustained winds of 35 or even 40 miles per hour and gusts as high as 75 mph, whereas in Big Snow Country the worst “wind storms” feature sustained winds of about 25 miles per hour with gusts rarely above 45 mph and virtually never higher than 50 mph.
Hail Storms: the severe ones occurring elsewhere will damage your house, your roof and your car, by for example destroying all of your glass windows. The worst the hail ever gets in Big Snow Country is penny sized which does not damage anything.
Severe Thunder Storms with massive amounts of lightning. There is commonly at least 100 times as much cloud to ground lightning in a storm in many other areas of the Midwest and south compared to the little baby thunder storms in Big Snow Country. Also, the loudness of the thunder is far less here than elsewhere.
Floods: In most areas up here, flooding never ever happens. There are a few low lying areas in Big Snow Country where it is possible for there to be minor flooding. Both the frequency and the severity of flooding even in the limited low lying spots are much less than in the flood prone areas of the Midwest. And there are many flood prone areas in the Midwest and in the south.
Heat waves and excessive heat in general. It almost goes without saying that Big Snow Country never has severe heat waves. If you would rather be comfortable than sweating it out in the summer, this is where you want to be.
Wildfires: These occasionally happen in the forest during unusually warm and dry weather. Since true droughts and lengthy heat waves are rare, wildfires are much more rare here than elsewhere in the rural parts of the Midwest and than in the Rocky Mountains area. The rare wildfires that occur here are not only short lasting but also small in size compared to what occurs in those other regions. The rare wildfires that do occur here are far more likely to effect rural woodland more than about 15 miles from Lake Superior as opposed to forest land and populated locations that are less than 15 miles away from the Lake. The risk of a wildfire is virtually zero very close to the Lake, say, within 5 miles of it.
Ice storms: Despite the colder climate, ice storms in Big Snow Country are relatively rare, and if there is any ice accumulation, it is almost always an insignificant amount. The key thing is that basically Big Snow Country is too cold for big ice storms. Severe ice storms are very rare mostly because storms that might produce ice storms mostly track well to the south and because when storms do track farther north it is generally too cold for ice up here, so everything or almost everything up here falls as snow whereas to the south (even in Wisconsin) there might be a lot of ice. In the rare event when an ice storm causes a power outage in Big Snow Country, since the ice storm will have been relatively minor, the power will be restored relatively quickly, most likely within hours. In summary, large ice storms are very rare and there is on average roughly one minor ice storm every two winters in Big Snow Country with relatively little ice accumulation.
Earthquakes: The probability of an earthquake in Big Snow Country is virtually zero since it is as far from any fault line as you can get.
Electric power outages directly or indirectly from any of the storms above (especially from ice storms) lasting from an hour to several weeks. Big Snow Country averages roughly one power outage every two years due to weather (usually due to some ice on power lines combined with winds of about 20 mph gusting to about 40 mph). Many other areas in the US have at least ten times that many power outages, especially in the Midwest and South.
In summary, Big Snow Country is virtually totally free of all of the above storm related threats, which hit much of the rest of the country every single year to one extent or another. Property insurance companies love this area, because they rarely have to pay out weather related property damage claims.
MORE THINGS BIG SNOW COUNTRY LACKS (WHAT A SHAME!
Traffic jams:. People love their cars and trucks in this area, but traffic jams and heavy traffic in general are unheard of due to the light population.
Air or water pollution: This is going to be about the least polluted spot in the country.
Crime: The whole region is as you would expect a low crime area. The bigger the crime, the more rare it is. Petty and quite frankly really dumb crimes do happen, mostly in the big towns such as Marquette, but larger crimes are relatively rare in Marquette and everywhere else in Big Snow Country.
Snakes: There aren’t any except little harmless snakes deep in the woods.
Bears, wolves, deer, etc: There are virtually no wolves and no bears except possibly a tiny number in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness Park. No wild animals of this sort ever wander into towns except every once in a blue moon a deer or two or three will wander into one of the small villages, but mostly in the middle of the night, so you won’t see deer unless you are up in the middle of the night.
Insects: Very few types of insects even exist here, and of course the quantity of insects around during the very short "insect season" is minimal. Insects are around outside only from about mid May until mid September and there are far more of them in the woods than in the towns. In the towns insects are not a big deal even at their peak time which is June and July. As long as you don’t live in or next to woodland, you won’t have a black fly or any other insect problem even in June or July.
Of course, in the woods, insects including perhaps the legendary black fly might be a problem during June and July. If you go into the woods in June or July, bring repellent.
ONE MORE THING: TAX CREDITS
There are two credits which help low income people (and people who have just moved into) Michigan.
Michigan has both a homestead property tax credit which reduces the already low property taxes of the area further for those with low incomes. Michigan also has a fairly generous heating credit, which reduces the cost of heating regardless of how you heat. Both of these credits are independent of income, meaning that even those with low incomes get them. In fact, those with the lowest incomes get the highest credits.
SAVE THOUSANDS WHEN YOU START A NEW BUSINESS
You can use Quest Business Services for free to help you get your new Big Snow Country business up and running.
In summary, Big Snow Country lacks so many seriously bad things that most other areas have to contend with that it turns out that it is very smart to live here and put up with about five months of cold and about four months of often heavy snow in exchange for 7-8 months of easy, worry free, and low cost living. Elsewhere the winter may be a lot nicer than here, but spring, summer, and sometimes even autumn are often plagued by disasters large and small, whereas up here winter is a pain but those other three seasons are stress free, worry free, and very nice indeed.
