Pellston Information & Overview

Pellston is a village in Emmet County and is perhaps best known today as the location of the Pellston Regional Airport. Nearly all air travelers to the Mackinac area enter northern Michigan through this airport. Due to its unique geographic location and properties, the town is known as the "Icebox of the Nation."

Record Lows

The temparture in Pellson can often reach well below zero for an average of 40 days each winter. Pellson is regularly called out in national weather reports, along with towns such as Big Piney in Wyoming, Fraser in Colorado and International Falls in Minnesota, as one of the coldest spots in the nation. The village has a somewhat unique geography, that plays a significant part in these record lows and continuous cold streaks. Pellston sits in a basin of sand between two vast semi-circular hill ranges. As the Maple River passes through the basin, evaporation causes dense daytime cloud-cover, reflecting much of the suns heat away from the valley. As night falls and the air cools, those low-level clouds disperse allowing most of the remaining heat to radiate up and out of the basin.

Pellston is conveniently located only 18 miles south of Mackinaw City and the Mackinac Bridge.

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