Latest news, weather, high school sports for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

Possibly the greatest of all cold waves surged into the United States on February 11, 1899.  The temperature fell to 61 below zero in Montana as a 1065 millibar (31.45 inches of mercury) arctic high dropped in out of Canada.  Record cold struck from the northern Rockies to the Deep South and Upper Michigan was right in the thick of it. 

Cold air began working into the U.S. at the end of January.  A big snowstorm preceded the cold wave in Upper Michigan.   Snow began falling in Marquette shortly before midnight on January 25 and continued through the next day.  The wind picked up and built drifts ten to twelve feet deep. 

On Lake Superior, the gale whipped the unfrozen water into a chaotic frenzy:  “The seas on the lake were something fearful.  No ice field has formed in the bay so far this winter and the wind had every opportunity to lash it into furious waves.”  The waves took out a boathouse in the harbor but the launches were saved.  The water came over the breakwater in such volumes that the structure could hardly be seen all day. 

Streetcars were blocked and railroads were delayed all over Upper Michigan.  In Ishpeming, the storm was welcomed.  It put down a good blanket of snow, which had been “a very scarce article up to date.”  In Calumet, the storm was dubbed “a screamer…almost without equal in the history of the village.”  It dumped 33 inches on the town, while Marquette collected 15 inches.  Even in the southern U.P. a substantial 10 inches piled up at Manistique.  For Iron Mountain it was the “first real blizzard of the season.” 

After the snow, came the cold.  On January 31, Marquette recorded its coldest temperature in years with a bone-chilling 18 degrees below zero.  Quickly, Marquette Bay was covered with a “solid sheet of ice” six inches thick.  Frozen water pipes became a problem all over the peninsula as the cold intensified the first week of February.  Trains were delayed as frost on the tracks made for very slippery conditions. 

The coldest weather came during February.  Iron Mountain checked in with 30 below zero on February 7.  On the 8^th, it bottomed out at 24 below.  The peak of the cold wave arrived mid month with the 40 below zero reading on February 13 termed “a record breaker.”  At the same time, just down the road in Norway, many fire hydrants were frozen.   Half the town was borrowing water from the hydrants of the other half. 

In Chocolay Township, just south of Marquette, farmers reported the loss of a number of horses due to the protracted cold.  In Negaunee, old-timers said they had never seen the Carp River so thickly covered with ice.  By mid-February the river was frozen to a depth of two feet. 

The Arctic Attack of 1899 brought misery and inconvenience to a vast portion of the nation.  Blizzards raged with bitter cold over the Rockies.  The storm was declared “one of the severest in the history of Idaho.”   The peak of the cold wave began in Montana on February 11; a thermometer in one town registered a brutal 61 degrees below zero.  By the 12^th, record cold reached the southern U.S.; Fort Worth, Texas reached 8 below, while at the same time nearly four inches of snow fell in Charleston, South Carolina.  The next day, Tallahassee, Florida plunged to 2 below zero; the coldest temperature ever recorded in the sunshine state.  This record has not been approached since. 

A memorable cold snowstorm roared up the East Coast on the 14^th, burying Washington under 20 inches of snow.  After the storm, the snow cover reached an incredible 34 inches on the level.  As New Orleans shivered through its coldest temperature ever, a numbing 7 degrees above zero, ice floes appeared at the mouth of the Mississippi; a phenomenon observed only once before in 1784. 

The cold lingered in Upper Michigan into March, culminating in a “great snowstorm” at mid month.  The wintry blast reversed a warming trend that had persisted for almost a decade. 

So history tells us that extremely cold air can still plunge into the U.S. in early to mid February.  Currently, a relatively mild Pacific air mass will dominate our weather through mid-week.  However, things will change by late in the week into the weekend as a deep upper-air trough digs into the Great Lakes (Images 1 and 2 above).  This will bring at least a brief shot of arctic air into Upper Michigan this weekend.