Record cold streak should end Wednesday

Much of the Upper Peninsula should still have to wait one more day to break a very long streak of chilly temperatures.

With Monday now in the books, the National Weather Service office in Negaunee Township has recorded 74 straight days without a temperature above freezing. It’s an all-time record for them, and it’ll soon be 75 days. The high temperature that they recorded today was 30.

“Long-term-wise, looking into the upcoming weekend and next week suggests we head back down in the deep freeze again,” National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Zika said. “It’ll be a short-lived warmup, and then we’re back to much below normal temperatures for the foreseeable future.”

The old record was 72 days, from December 1978 to February of ’79. The daily average temperature during that streak was 15.5 degrees. The current streak has had a daily average of just 14.

“December, January and February is considered our winter season (at the National Weather Service),” Zika said. “Right now, the average temperature for the beginning of December through where we are in February is actually the coldest that we’ve been since way back in 1961. We have a pretty good chance of holding onto that record.”

The National Weather Service is expecting to break the cold streak on Wednesday, but they say we can expect a significant winter storm to affect the entire Upper Peninsula near the end of the week. It should include heavy snowfall Thursday afternoon and Thursday night, followed by severe winds that will last well into Friday.