A Cold Start to June
The jet stream is a current of strong wind high in our atmosphere. It steers storms across our continents and divides warm air to the south from cold air to the north (in the Northern Hemisphere). Since spring began, it has positioned itself, more often than not, in a way that’s meant cooler than average weather for Northern Michigan.
May overall was a cool month, except for the 20th and 21st when thermometer readings were in the 80’s. It hasn’t happened since. We’re just a week into June and only three days ago we had widespread frost! The forecast for this week continues to show cooler than average weather. We typically see temperatures in the low to mid 70’s at this time of year, but our next chance at seeing that will be next weekend.
If the late-spring chill’s got you down, keep in mind that it could be worse. Yesterday and today, there was definitely some snow showing up on the radar over parts of Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota. I spent two years living and working in North Dakota and never saw snow this late in the season. It’s actually been at least 10 years since any June snow was reported in that state, so this is pretty significant. The latest I ever saw snow was a blizzard around May 15th in 2005 that dumped about a foot of snow on southwestern North Dakota. From what I remember, residents of Hettinger got more snow out of that storm than they’d seen the entire previous winter! We had an inch or two at most on the ground in Bismarck.
Could snow in June happen here? It’s unusual, but not impossible. The overnight temperatures we’ve had so far this month have certainly been cold enough at times, but have never coincided with any precipitation.
