August continued cool weather pattern

IRONWOOD - Cool and wet best describes August in Ironwood, adding to a year of below average temperatures.

In fact, Kevin Crupi, of the National Weather Service office in Marquette, said the first eight months of 2014 were the second coldest on record in Ironwood, dating to 1901. The cold first eight months came in 1917.

That's coming off of 2013, which was the coldest year on record in Ironwood.

A persistent northwest flow of Canadian air into the upper Great Lakes region caused the August temperatures to be 1.4 degrees below normal.

Frequent thunderstorms produced 5.06 inches of rain, mostly near the end of the month, a total that was 150 percent above normal.

Most of that rain came near the end of the month and with another 5 inches in September, around 10 inches has fallen on Ironwood in a five-week period.

Only June this year was warmer than normal among the summer months.

Ironwood's average August temperature was 62.7 degrees. The high reading was 83 on Aug. 25, while the low was 41 on Aug 14.

An interesting note to the Upper Peninsula weather pattern for the summer is the late ice melt in spring held water temperatures on the Great Lakes below

average and resulted in even cooler conditions near the shores of the lakes.

August average temperatures at Marquette and Munising were nearly 4 degrees below normal.

Across the U.P., there were no reports of 90-degree readings in August.

The high was 89 at Pelkie on Aug. 25 and the low was 29 south of Munising on Aug. 15.

Gladstone recorded the most rain at 5.63 inches.

Stambaugh received only 1.97 inches.