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Last week we touched on the greatest U.P. heatwave of July 1936. It brought an extreme period of hot weather to much of the country. Today, the focus is on the hottest day ever recorded in Upper Michigan.
During late June 1901, heat began building on the Plains into the Mid-Mississippi Valley. While not as extreme as 1936 in terms of high temperatures , the heat wave of 1901 persisted in areas south and east of Upper Michigan for the better part of a month-and-a-half. In mid-July, the hot weather briefly surged northward into the Upper Great Lakes.
On July 13, the temperature in Houghton popped above 90 degrees. The next day, the high reached a scorching 103. The peak of the heat wave hit on Monday, July 15 with Marquette topping out at an all-time record of 108 degrees!
Life went on as usual despite the sweltering heat, though many residents chose to board the open-air street cars in an attempt to catch a cooling breeze. Back at the turn of the century, "men felt it was their manly duty to swelter (in hats and coats) during scorching hot weather for dignity's sake" wrote a reporter in the local newspaper. On this blistering hot Monday, it was noted that men in town were "emboldened to cast their coats aside". They walked the streets and did their business in shirtsleeves.
The hot weather didn't last long in the U.P., but took a heavy toll to the south and east. Back before air conditioning, heat waves were deadly. During the summer of 1901, an estimated 9,500 people died in the bigger cities due to the effects of the unrelenting heat. It's the deadliest heat-related disaster in U.S. history.
Heat will be non-existent over the next week or so. A cold upper-air low will spin out of central Canada toward Lake Superior early next week. The system will keep temperatures near to below average with scattered showers likely from time to time.