The clouds give way to blue skies on West Hewitt Avenue in Marquette Tuesday night. (Photo courtesy of Moire Embley)

MARQUETTE — A fast-moving storm Tuesday afternoon, which produced winds upward of 50 mph, knocked down trees and power lines and caused power outages for thousands of Marquette County residents.

About 3,000 Marquette Board of Light and Power customers, mostly concentrated in Marquette Township, Negaunee Township and Skandia, experienced outages, BLP Distribution Superintendent Karl Benstrom said.

“For the most part, I would say by 6:30 p.m. the majority of the customers that were affected by the outage had power restored,” Benstrom said. “There still might have been a few dozen out, but it would not have been thousands or hundreds.”

It is estimated that 1,200 to 1,300 customers of the Upper Peninsula Power Co. in the greater Ishpeming, Negaunee and Marquette area experienced outages Tuesday. As of press time this morning, roughly 150 UPPCO customers south of the Dead River Basin were still without power, UPPCO representative Brett French said.

“There was a lot of tree damage and some broken poles,” French said. “Crews were working throughout the night and into this morning, and they are still working as we speak. We also brought in crews from the Munising, Houghton and Escanaba areas to assist with the restoration effort.”

French thanked residents and encouraged them to make UPPCO aware of potential problems either at the www.uppco.com web portal or by calling 906-449-2011 or 800-562-7809. Anyone witnessing downed power lines should immediately call 911.

Several residents throughout the county made posts on social media about the storm and outages.

Meteorologist Matt Zika, who works at the National Weather Service office in Negaunee Township, said the front developed early Tuesday afternoon in the Ironwood area and “raced” eastward was the trigger for the storms.

He said along with high winds and thunderstorms, some hail was reported in the Republic, Ishpeming and Negaunee areas.

“Obviously the winds were strong enough to knock down trees and knock out power lines,” Zika said. “But it wasn’t necessarily unusual.

“We noticed the transition today, when you walk outside it was definitely fall-like, where it was mild yesterday before the storm and that was the forcing mechanism that pushed the storm through the area.”

As for the orange clouds Tuesday evening, that was just the sunset, Zika said.

“The sky was orange just because the sun angle was so low that it was just illuminating the clouds as the storm rolled through,” he said. “We had a front moving through the area, which was the trigger that developed early in the afternoon in the Ironwood area and raced eastward.”

Lisa Bowers can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 242.