UPPER PENINSULA -- We ushered in the new year with a brutal snowstorm. It brought the coldest temperatures of the year, with parts of the U.P. going 10 and even 20 degrees below zero.
March roared-in the spring season like a lion, giving us one of the biggest snows of the year. Areas like Ishpeming saw over 20 inches of the white stuff.
And for the rest of that month, temperature history was made: it was hot!
This unprecedented warmth in the U.P. and across the nation easily broke heat records. When you add all of that heat to the spring drought that we went through, it's easy to see why wildfires ravaged many Upper Peninsula areas.
As the heat intensified during the summer, many people tried to keep cool. The heat helped to fuel strong thunderstorms in July, which swept through the U.P. and dropped lots of lightning and hail.
Overall, the fall season wasn't quite as hot. September, October, and November were all pretty close to normal, temperature-wise. The leaves changed color nicely over the autumn months.
Our first snow in October wasn't much, and it melted away rather quickly.
Then, around Halloween, Hurricane Sandy washed ashore on the Northeast coast. We felt the blow, hundreds of miles away from the storm, with high waves on Lake Superior caused by windy conditions.
So far this winter, we've seen two big winter storms. One, during the second half of a mild November, dropped about a foot of snow. And an even stronger snowstorm, late December, dropped over 20 inches of snow and ended the mild weather streak.
Despite very typical late-December temperatures, this year is still on track to being the warmest overall on record.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forWLUC