September 19, 1844: Big Day in U.P. History
On September 19, 1844, the day dawned clear and sunny over central Upper Michigan. We know this because surveyor William Austin Burt was working with his team in the rugged hills near the site of present-day Negaunee. He kept a journal and briefly noted the beautiful start to the day. It was a great opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness of his solar compass, a device he invented to circumvent errors caused by magnetism in rocks (Image 1 above). One of his men was carrying a magnetic compass south of Teal Lake. The compass suddenly began behaving strangely. The needle, instead of pointing toward magnetic north, swung to just south of west. He called over the rest of the team and Burt ordered his men to "look around and see what you can find." They came back with iron ore specimens that gave birth to the iron industry of the Lake Superior region.
We know that the weather deteriorated over the Lake Superior region the next couple of days. The next day, Burt noted rainy, cloudy weather. On the morning of September 21, 1844, he noted “Snow fell in the forepart of the day 3-6 inches deep.” To the northwest, the schooner John Jacob Astor met her doom on the rocks at Copper Harbor during the storm. This was the first documented shipwreck of an American vessel on Lake Superior. The Astor also happened to be the first American ship launched on the lake in 1835.
The weather has already deteriorated over Upper Michigan as a deep upper-air trough of low pressure has developed overhead (Image 2). While we do not expect a significant snowfall, the weather through the weekend will be chilly and unsettled. Disturbances dropping into the trough will bring periodic shower activity, with the most widespread rain likely along sections of northern Upper Michigan adjacent to Lake Superior.
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