Good morning, Northern Michigan. This is your cup
of Traverse City for the last day of
March
2026.
For those keeping score, it's the thirty first.
I'm Mike,
and I do have my coffee ready.
Normally, I like to do good news stories,
but,
today, I wanted to kinda do a
story. There was a a lady in the
Upper Peninsula,
where the scammers contacted her and claimed her
computer had been compromised.
And they direct directed her to record herself,
stating her name, address,
and social security number to verify her identity.
And after they got her personal data, the
scammers instructed the woman to withdraw money from
her bank and claimed a federal agent would
arrive at her residence to collect the cash
and resolve the situation.
And this is kind of a,
twist on an older scam.
But
anytime anybody
calls
you
and then says something about your computer,
hang up on them. Doesn't matter who they
are, what they sound like,
unless it's, you know, somebody you know, but
why would they call you about your computer?
And even then, be careful. Now with the
AI voice cloning and
all the AI stuff out there, it's a
little harder to spot these kind of scams.
But, you know, there's the the, you know,
classic one where
they say, oh, we'll help you with your
computer problem and
or the the the one, the big one
is the antivirus,
payment scam. So what they'll do is they'll
send you a receipt,
in in in your email
or whatever
saying, you know, thank you for your, purchase
500 and something dollars for antivirus.
And, of course, you don't
know anything about it and don't want $500
or more taken out of your account. So
they give you a convenient 800 number to
call or maybe not even an 800 number.
They give you a number to call so
you get on there with them and they
say, oh, okay. Well, we could,
refund your money. You need to install this
this thing so, we could access your bank
and and
refund the money.
So what they'll do is they'll put in
a refund instead of $500,
they'll put in $5,000
or make it look like they put in
$5,000
after they're looking at your desktop and you
can see it and
all that. And then they say, oh, we
need that money back. So they'll,
have you,
hold I need you to go, withdraw the
money and then go,
to Target and buy gift cards, and
and you can pay us back that way,
blah blah blah. You know, just
ridiculous stuff. You know?
So use some common sense. If if
well, I would shouldn't say it's common sense
because they're very convincing.
Just
be really super careful out there,
with,
you know, the online scamming,
you know, or you get an email from
what appears to be your bank
saying they need to verify your information.
And what's funny about that is they'll blast
out, you know, a whole bunch of them
for Bank of America. Then they'll
blast out a whole bunch of them for
Fifth Third Bank and a whole bunch of
them for,
you know, whatever bank.
And they'll keep doing that, and eventually, you'll
get one with your bank on it, and
it looks official.
And, again, with AI help now,
you know, their bad English and bad writing,
doesn't
show up as easily. So
always be skeptical.
Anybody calls you,
get, you know, get the name of the
company, then you look it up, and you
call them if you really think this is
something that is
legit.
Another,
famous one is somebody will call and,
tell them we're I'm agent so and so
from the IRS.
And, you know,
chances are they have a thick accent
of some sort.
That's a that's a clue.
You know, somebody with a very Indian sounding
accent tells you their name is Tom or
Joe or George or,
you know, some normal,
English name,
you may not be right. In fact, it
isn't. The IRS will never call you. Period.
They'll not send you an email. They'll will
they will not call you. The only
communication you're gonna get from the IRS, if
you have an IRS problem,
is a
is US Postal Service mail?
I mean,
that's it. They don't
do
phone calls. They don't do
texts. They don't oh, another one.
I I keep getting these texts and it
has, either an Indian or
Chinese,
area code you know, post phone code, but
I'll get a text saying the
Michigan department of motor vehicles or, you know,
DMV
is gonna suspend your license and cancel your
registration if you don't pay these fines
for an unpaid ticket. And
well, first off, there is no DMV in
Michigan.
It's the secretary of state, and and they're
getting smarter on that one.
But
they're not gonna use
a phone number from
India or China.
They're gonna use
they're not even gonna text you. They'll never
text you. Michigan secretary of states will not
text you unless you've set up an appointment
with them, and
that's a whole different thing. But, you know,
just
if somebody contacts you, you can't believe anything
you see, hear, or read.
Be super
skeptical.
And,
again, you know, if if you're really gonna
get arrested, the the, police will show up
in your driveway
with a warrant.
Okay? Nobody's coming to arrest you.
So there you go.
Anyway,
let's get to the weather.
And, last night, I had some, thunderstorms.
That was nice. I mean, they weren't too
ridiculous, but, you know, lots of lightning and
thunder there towards, bedtime last night. It was
pretty cool.
You know, didn't didn't seem to be damaging
or anything of the sort,
but your mileage may vary.
So today, a chance of showers before 11AM,
then a chance of showers and thunderstorms
between eleven and two,
and showers and a possible thunderstorm
after two.
So they're being real specific again today, but,
yeah. We'll see.
Today, a high near 50.
Calm wind becoming east around five miles per
hour.
Chance of precipitation
is 80%.
New rainfall amounts between a tenth and a
quarter of inch
quarter of an inch expected higher amounts possible
in thunderstorms.
Yeah. Duh.
Weather service is very literal here.
But,
tonight, partly cloudy with a low around 29.
Oh, that's cold,
for this time of year. North wind, five
to 10 miles per hour.
Excuse me.
And tonight
or to tomorrow,
partly sunny with a high near 43 northwest
winds five to 10.
So
looks like,
I'm seeing the word snow,
Wednesday night,
but it doesn't look like
it's gonna amount to month much. So
hang in there.
It's spring. Spring does what spring does, and,
we may see snow.
Catch me later.