The Winter of 2017-2018 has brought extreme cold and rare weather phenomenon to Michigan. We've seen light pillars and pancake ice. And an even more rare weather happening occurred on Lake Michigan recently (Dec 30) when a "snow tornado" formed near Traverse City.

Northern Michigan meteorologist Joe Charlevoix shared photos of the event on Facebook, saying:

I have seen many things with lake effect snow... but this is a first for me in the middle of winter. James Lawson took these pictures Saturday (December 30) of a waterspout (or more commonly a snowspout or snownado) off of Peshawbestown in Leelanau County over Grand Traverse Bay. If Wikipedia is correct, only 6 pictures of these have ever been taken, all in Ontario!

See the photos below

Video of the event was captured as well

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