Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By ZACHARY MARANO
Summer officially began Tuesday morning and mother nature got an early start baking the region in record-setting warm temperatures Monday.
Monday afternoon’s heat officially rose to a record 94 degrees according to a National Weather Service recording at the Gogebic-Iron Wastewater Treatment Facility in Ironwood. The facility takes readings every 24 hours at 7 a.m., so the 94 degrees from Monday afternoon technically becomes the high for June 21 — or “the 24-hour period ending at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, June 21.”
The previous record high for June 21 was 92 degrees set in 1910.
Unofficially, temperatures were reported on Monday as high as 97 degrees across the western Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin.
Behind the heat were thunderstorms overnight Monday into Tuesday. Bessemer, Wakefield and Ontonagon also experienced high winds and hail in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Tara Dudzik, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Marquette, explained the extreme heat was caused by the region being under a weather pattern called an omega block, which is an area of high pressure sandwiched between two areas of lower pressure. According to the National Weather Service website, this is called an omega block because it looks like the Greek letter omega on a map.
Dubzik said that the remnants of a large storm in North and South Dakota drifted through the western U.P. on Tuesday before breaking up, which caused the storms on Tuesday morning. Dubzik said that there were no reported power outages because of the storm or the heat.
The NWS issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 4:10 a.m. on Tuesday for an area with a population of 4,970 in the cities of Bessemer and Wakefield until 5:30. According to the warning, the storm’s winds would reach up to 60 mph with the possibility of large hail.
The NWS also posted weather warnings early Tuesday for parts of Ontonagon County, reporting winds of 40 mph and the possibility of hail in Ontonagon, White Pine, Bergland, Bruce Crossing and Greenland.
According to the Associated Press, the forecast for Ironwood calls for clear skies tonight with lows around 54.
The warmth is expected to return Thursday and Friday with highs in the upper 80s and a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evenings. Weekend highs are forecasted in the 70s, with more rain expected Saturday but sunny on Sunday.
