Maple sugaring in Shiawassee County, Michigan
- Sap starts
- Feb 23
- typical year
- Season ends
- Mar 28
- about 5 weeks
- Sap days / season
- 38.8
- 1991–2026 average
- Taps, 2022
- 4,240
- #37 of 66 in MI
Sap-flow outlook at Corunna right now
Full Michigan forecast →Forecast for Corunna, MI
Updated Oct 6, 9:49 AM EDT
Off-season for now. Sap needs freezing nights, and none are in sight. Shiawassee County's season usually opens around February 23, which is 140 days away.
No freeze-thaw days in the forecast
freeze thaw 32°F
- WedOct 754° / 73°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - ThuOct 847° / 65°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - FriOct 941° / 67°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SatOct 1044° / 72°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SunOct 1153° / 76°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - MonOct 1252° / 72°No refreeze forecast
Data: National Weather Service. Verdicts use freeze-thaw thresholds from maple field research; your woods may run a little differently.
When the sap runs
The sugaring calendar at Corunna
Year-to-year spread
- Opening signal
- Median Feb 27; the middle half of seasons fell between Feb 21 and Mar 7. Earliest Feb 2 (2017), latest Mar 15 (2018).
- Closing signal
- Median Mar 31; middle half between Mar 25 and Apr 8. Earliest Mar 3 (2024), latest Apr 18 (1993).
- Sap days by month
- Dec18%Jan11%Feb18%Mar34%Apr19%May1%
36 seasons of sap weather
Shiawassee County seasons, 1991–2026
Maple production
Shiawassee County in the Census of Agriculture
USDA counts maple operations every five years. In Shiawassee County the 2022 Census found 9 farms making syrup (+200% since 2017), with taps +60% and syrup output +128% over the same five years. That works out to about 0.23 gallons of syrup per tap in 2022 (0.16 in 2017). Among the 385 counties in this atlas, Shiawassee County ranks 205 by taps.
| Census year | Farms | Taps | Gallons of syrup | Gal / tap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 9 | 4,240 | 967 | 0.23 |
| 2017 | 3 | 2,650 | 424 | 0.16 |
Nearby
Neighboring maple counties
22 mi · Saint Johns, MI
Clinton County
Sap ~Feb 24 – Mar 28 · 3,163 taps
22 mi · Flint, MI
Genesee County
Sap ~Feb 24 – Mar 28 · 2,353 taps
28 mi · Lansing, MI
Ingham County
Sap ~Feb 24 – Mar 28 · 6,355 taps
31 mi · Saginaw, MI
Saginaw County
Sap ~Feb 24 – Mar 30 · 3,160 taps
33 mi · Ithaca, MI
Gratiot County
Sap ~Mar 1 – Apr 2 · 1,638 taps
41 mi · Lapeer, MI
Lapeer County
Sap ~Feb 24 – Mar 28 · 9,173 taps
About these numbers
The season dates are estimated from 36 seasons of daily high and low temperatures for the PRISM 4-km grid cell at Corunna (745ft), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast: a sap day is an overnight low under 30.2 °F followed by an afternoon high over 37.4 °F. Each season's closing signal is the last sap day before accumulated warmth reaches a threshold, and the opening signal sits five weeks before that, never earlier than the first real freeze-thaw week. Tested against 117 state-seasons of USDA-reported dates, the rule lands within 5.5 days of the reported close and 6.6 days of the reported opening on average, and the typical dates shown here are scaled to Michigan's USDA record (12 years). Production figures are copied from the Census as published. Full method, calibration tables and the downloadable dataset →
Sources · 6
- 1.2022 Census of Agriculture, County Level Data — Michigan, Table 37: Maple Syrup, 2022 and 2017 · USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
- 2.PRISM daily temperature grids (AN81d, 4 km), accessed 2026-10-05 · PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu
- 3.Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) web services · NOAA Regional Climate Centers
- 4.USDA NASS maple syrup reports — approximate average season opened and closed dates, 2011–2022 · USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (mirrored by the University of Vermont)
- 5.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
- 6.GeoNames gazetteer (cities500), CC BY 4.0 · GeoNames
FAQ
Shiawassee County sugaring questions
- When should I tap maple trees in Shiawassee County, Michigan?
- In a typical year the sap starts running around February 23 near Corunna and the season winds down around March 28. Have your taps in a day or two before the first forecast string of freezing nights and 40 °F days. In the past 36 seasons the weather signal came as early as Feb 2 and as late as Mar 15.
- How much maple syrup does Shiawassee County produce?
- The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 9 maple operations in Shiawassee County with 4,240 taps producing 967 gallons of syrup, ranking 37 of 66 Michigan's counties with published tap counts.
- How many sap days does Shiawassee County get in a season?
- On average 38.8 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Corunna, of which about 13.5 are textbook days with a night in the 20s and a day in the 40s. The best season since 1991 was 2002 (56 sap days); the leanest was 2011 (25).
- Where do these dates come from?
- From 36 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Corunna (PRISM 4-km grid), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast, then calibrated against USDA's reported season dates for Michigan. They describe a typical year at one point in the county; your sugarbush, slope and elevation can shift them by days.


