Warm weather wins out in September
MARQUETTE — It’s September, but if you’ve been in the Upper Peninsula for a while, you may have noticed that it’s not your average September.
The current weather pattern has been bringing some unseasonably high temperatures to the upper Great Lakes region. At this rate, the month may turn out to be one of the warmest on record.
“With how warm it’s been so far this September, we’re actually on track for a top five warmest September,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Matt Zika. “Looking down the line over the next couple of weeks, it doesn’t look like too much is going to change other than we’re probably not going to be seeing 85 and 90 degrees.”
A general lack of cool nights has also kept a lot of the fall colors at bay. Come winter, a strong El Niño will likely help push temperatures above average, but that doesn’t mean it will be consistently warm.
“There’s no doubt it will get cold this winter. We’ll see bouts of some very cold weather and some very snowy weather at times through the winter season,” said Zika. “It’s just, once we put the composite together by the end, from December all the way through the months of February into March and average them, temperature-wise, we’ll probably be above normal.”
The current mild streak of weather is expected to continue through the beginning of October.