Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
A fallen tree covers the bike trail from Frenchtown Road to the Ironwood softball and Little League fields Monday afternoon. The wind was whipping the sand across the infield of the softball diamond. Wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour were forecast for the Ironwood area Monday.
By LARRY HOLCOMBE
High winds caused power outages across the region on Monday that continued into Tuesday.
Xcel Energy reported 1,200 customers in the Gogebic County and northern Iron County were without power Monday evening as crews were worked to restore power, according to spokesperson Chris Ouellette.
"There were a lot of trees down on power lines," she said.
She said some 800 customers were still without power Tuesday morning as new crews were brought in to relieve those who had worked through the night.
Ouellette said with favorable weather on Tuesday, they expected to have power restored to all customers Tuesday.
There were several trees and limbs down on power lines across Iron County, Wisconsin, on Monday causing power outages and sparking several grass fires, according to a spokesperson from the Iron County dispatch. All the fires were contained, but several fire departments were called out to various locations.
A deputy with the Gogebic County Sheriff's Office said there were sporadic power outages reported across the county. Ironwood Public Safety said they responded to a few reports of limbs or trees on power lines and were watchful of sparks possibly causing fires.
Marenisco Township supervisor Bruce Mahler said power was out in Marenisco from about noon Monday to 11 p.m., adding power was also out in the Presque Isle and Boulder Junction areas in Wisconsin, all on account of a transmission line had been damaged in northern Wisconsin.
Ouellette said there were also power outages in the Mercer area, and 32,000 reported outages across the Wisconsin and Upper Michigan as severe storms caused infrastructure damage to their service lines and transmissions lines in western Wisconsin. She said there were radar-indicated tornados and hail in Polk County.
Matt Zika from the National Weather Service in Marquette said there were high winds across much of northern Great Lakes Region.
"We had a big powerful low pressure system over Minnesota up against a high pressure over Ontario, and it caused some crazy southerly winds at 40 to 50 mph across much of the Upper Peninsula, including the Gogebic Range," he said.
"The way things evolved it was not that unusual. We get these sort of wind events as we transition between seasons," he said.
Zika said winds were higher in Marquette and Baraga counties, clocking more than 60 mph, and subsequent damage was worse than reported in the western U.P. "We have many tree limbs down and thousands without power in Marquette and Baraga counties," he said.
Temperatures are expected to warm later this week in the Ironwood area, with highs in the 80s Thursday and Friday, Zika said.
"After an extremely chilly April, it's striking to go from what feels like winter to summer in just a few days," he said.
But temperatures are headed back down across the Great Lakes region, with highs in 50s forecast for Ironwood early next week, below normals in the 60s, and lows could reach into the 30s, he said.
"It's definitely going to feel way different, but that's not so unusual for May," he said.
While there's no mention of freezing temperatures in the forecast, Zika said he still stands by the recommendation of not planting too much before Memorial Day.
