Hurricane Norbert remnants about to hit the U.P.

The remnants of Hurricane Norbert are soaking the southwestern U.S. For instance, Monday was the wettest single day on record for the Phoenix, Arizona area. Those hurricane remnants are about to make their way to the Upper Peninsula.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the entire central and western U.P. through Wednesday night. Forecasters are expecting one to two inches of rain in many spots, possibly three if thunderstorms show up.

Even though that doesn’t sound like much rain, it could still be enough to cause flooding, “especially with the heavy rain that we had from the previous week, so we had really saturated soils,” NWS meteorologist Keith Cooley said. “The overall impact on the rivers and area streams at this point is not completely known, but it does look like they could start rising as we see the heavy rain.”

The greatest amounts of rain are expected to fall late tonight through early Wednesday afternoon. High winds are likely to become an issue.

“That would be most notable over the Keweenaw and over the western part of the U.P. near the lakeshore,” Cooley added. “We could see gusts getting kind of close to 45 to 50 miles per hour.”

Daily high temperatures in the 50s are also on the way with the hurricane remnants. However, Cooley says this probably isn’t the last time this year we’ll see 70. He says it’s likely the temps will warm back up to that level sometime in the next few weeks.