Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
MUDDY ORONTO and Parkers Creek converge at the mouth on Lake Superior Monday morning at Saxon Harbor. More than 6 inches of rain in the Saxon, Wis., area over the week sent streams sky high, washing tons of debris into the lake. The stream would normally be flowing at a trickle this time of year.
Labor Day weekend of 2014 will be remembered as one of wetness and lightning across the Gogebic Range.
A Sunday night lightning storm that extended into Monday morning caused area streams to rise and some gravel roads to wash out, capping off a wild week of weather.
Parkers and Oronto creeks at Saxon Harbor, nearly bone-dry just two weeks ago, turned high and muddy as the rain caused them to rise to spring run-off levels and send woody debris into Lake Superior.
The Saxon area recorded more than 6 inches of rain for the week, while Ironwood had around 5 inches, including 24-hour totals of 1.57 and 1.75 inches.
It had been a relatively dry month up until the first part of the week, when the rains began.
August of 2013 was actually wetter, with 8.37 inches falling, just short of the 110-year record.
The forecast for Ironwood through next Monday calls for mostly sunny weather, although there's a chance of severe thunderstorms on Thursday, when the probability of rain is pegged at 80 percent.
The National Weather Service in Marquette on Tuesday listed a hazardous weather outlook for parts of the western Upper Peninsula, including Gogebic, Ontonagon and Iron counties. There was a chance of thunderstorms later Tuesday for the central U.P. and a potential for storms developing on Thursday afternoon in the U.P., with hail and high winds possible.
A high of 80 was forecast for today in Ironwood, with sunshine.
