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The fall of 1911 was mild.  The growing season that began on May 3 in Marquette extended to October 24 in 1911.  The local newspaper boasted that the length of this growing season was “as long a period as…the average in south-central Illinois.”  December was more than five degrees above the long-term average.  It all changed as the first month of the New Year began.  A two-day snowstorm commenced on New Year’s Day, which was followed by the unloading of arctic air that had been building over the northwestern portion of the continent. 

On January 4, the temperature struggled to zero for a high in the “Queen City” by the lake, with a low of 12 degrees below zero.  Then from the 5^th through the 7^th, the mercury failed to reach zero in Marquette, with a nadir of 22 below.  Only nine times since the brutal winter of 1875 had the high temperature in Marquette stayed below zero.  The three consecutive days of subzero highs bore witness to the record cold that became established over much of the country in January 1912. 

The bitter weather was felt throughout the region westward to the Rockies and eastward to the Atlantic coast.  A huge ice jam formed on the Fox River in Wisconsin near Appleton, causing the suspension of most manufacturing operations up and down the Fox Valley.  Crews of men tried in vain to blast through the nearly two feet of ice with dynamite; but with temperatures hovering near 20 below, the broken ice froze together as fast as it was blown apart.  In Yonkers, New York, the Hudson River froze over for the first time in eighteen years.  New York City’s harbor was reported “nearly as icebound as it gets.”  Trains were reported frozen to the tracks as far south as Virginia, while to the west in Minnesota, the temperature tumbled as low as 46 degrees below zero. 

Back in Upper Michigan, the early winter cold wave brought on lake effect snow in abundance, especially in the Copper Country.  West to northwesterly winds typical in an arctic cold wave generated perpetual snow showers.  Houghton already had three feet of snow on the ground near the end of the first week in January, a “very heavy” amount for so early in the month.  A Copper Country reporter wrongly speculated that the arctic intrusion of the last few days “marked the zenith of the winter’s cold.”  By January 11, the Houghton weather observer declared there was “no prospect of a change in the weather.”  He reported a temperature of 7 below “with the second edition” of the blizzard from a couple of days earlier. 

January 1912 ended with an average temperature of 1.3 degrees, the coldest month in Marquette’s history.  No month since then, even in the cold winters of the 1960s and 70s came close.  Since the National Weather Service moved their operation “up the hill” to Negaunee, the coldest month was a relatively balmy 2.8 degrees in 1994.  The average is around 12.5 degrees.