Team Elmer's

About Team Elmer's

Lake-effect arrives in Traverse City in bands: an hour of nothing, then twenty minutes that erases a parking lot. Team Elmer's plows through those hours — lots opened wide, entrances and drives cut through, sidewalks shoveled and treated so a business can unlock at its usual hour and nobody has to think about the weather. Snow along East Bay comes wet and heavy one week and dry as sugar the next, and each kind wants a different pass. The banks get pushed where they belong rather than where they're convenient, because by February you learn fast which is which. By the time the sun comes up over the bay, the lot is wet and bare and nothing about the morning is late.