We basically didn't have a Winter, we got 1 week of really heavy snow, but that was about it.
I am a shoveler, I will never own a snowblower as long as I am still able to shovel. It's good exercise that I need in the Winter. Last year I had 1 week of good exercise from shoveling and a couple other small days of shoveling. This year there's been a little bit to do here or there, but it's melted fully a few times too, so there are no snow piles.
And most Michiganders you talk to are thankful for the milder Winters, but that's not the whole story. There are all kinds of unobvious effects of global warming that can be destructive. Lake Michigan regulates our weather in many ways. Less ice on the lake is bad for a number of reasons, it makes for warmer Summer waters which don't regulate storms as well as cold water does. I think the windstorms we get several times a year now are much more frequent than the 70s or 80s. I don't remember big tree limbs coming down in my neighborhood several times a year when I was younger. Now it happens a couple times a Spring, a few times a Summer and again a couple times in the Fall. The cold water isn't sucking the energy out of storms that come across the lake as much anymore. And the ice also provides a shield that helps prevent Winter erosion along the lake shore when the wurf can be quite violent and destructive, there's almost no ice right now.
Beyond that, there are many other effects that are less obvious. The soil here relies on deep freeze and thaw cycles that aerate it an make it more fertile. Crops do better with severe Winters that kill off crop eating pests like insects and deer. Ground water needs snow melt to replenish. There's all sorts of things that are effected by global warming we don't think about. So the idea of, "Oh, warmer Winters in MI, awesome!" might not be true. For all we know, Michigan will be the first place that become uninhabitable due to global warming, probably unlikely, but still possible.
We just don't know.
= new reply since forum marked as read