This story was produced by My UP News Correspondent Jessica Goska, find more details here.
The Marquette area experienced its warmest year on record in 2024, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
At the NWS Negaunee office, weather records date back to 1959.
It’s not hotter summers or warmer daytime temperatures that forecaster Greg Michels credits for the record-setting year. It’s record warm lows.
“Each year, 2020, 2021, 2023 and now 2024, we’ve been having abnormally warm low temperatures at night. And that’s where the degree of warming has been coming from,” explained Michels. “It hasn’t been necessarily high temperatures during the day. It’s been the lows at night that have been the warmest that has been driving this warm temperature streak.”
Most of the country is experiencing a trend of warmer low temperatures. In Marquette, 2024 saw 23 daily record warm lows.
The previous record for the warmest year in Marquette (43.9 degrees) was set in 2012. Last year beat the previous record by two-tenths of a degree (44.1 degrees).
Michels attributed the above average temperatures over 2024’s winter months to El Niño conditions.
“What’s going to end up happening for the rest of this winter is we’re getting into a La Niña, which is the opposite of what we had before,” said Michels.
He claimed that the rest of this winter will look more “like a typical winter,” compared to last year, which saw almost record low snowfall across the Upper Peninsula.
“Just because we had a warm winter last winter doesn’t mean that this winter is going to be the exact same way… so, It’s going to be more of a typical winter than what we had last winter,” Michels remarked.
The warmest average low recorded at the Negaunee NWS office in 2024 was 35.2 degrees. In 2012, when the last record was set, the warmest average low was 34.6 degrees.
Two years, 2012 and 1987, are currently tied for the record average high temperature in the Marquette area. Both of those years, the average record high temperature recorded was 53.2 degrees. In 2024, which takes second place for the record, the average high temperature was 53.0 degrees.
The month of December 2024, the average temperature was 23 degrees in Marquette.
Average temperatures for the year are calculated by adding the average low and average high and diving the sum by two.
