…but, where in the heck is our warm weather?! We did actually have around 2 days the week of May 8th, even hitting the 80’s in areas. Things were a little upside down around the 11th or 12th, with Mohawk warming to 83, but Jacobsville not getting warmer than 51, due to our old friend east winds and the chill they bring from off the big lake.
It seems like we struggle to get out of the low 50’s most days, with either the winds off the lake, a thick overcast, rain or some kind of combination of the three. However, like I say, I cannot complain. We have not had snow, or really hot temps, severe dryness, flooding or severe weather. Just lots and lots of jacket weather nd not a lot of pure sunshine.
I keep telling myself that it will be coming and perhaps I am jumping the gun for us to be seeing endless days in the 70’s, but we should be hitting at least the 60’s a whole lot more than we have been and seeing more 70’s than we have been. I guess the one upside is that the bugs have not shown their ugly faces yet. I have seen video and some pictures from the southern UP and it looked like the blackflies were pretty bad. I my have seen one or two this past week, but they are the early hatchers and really tend to be non-biters. Maybe we will go from these 50’s to 70’s and 80’s and cause the blackfly season to be a short one.
Two weeks ago, along with the brief spell of warm weather, we had some thunderstorms. They were not too bad in our neck of the woods, just a lot of lightning and thunder and some short spells of heavy rain. Not far away though, there were some severe storms that brought wind damage and also a fair amount of flooding. On the evening of the 13th we were treated to some cumulus mammatus clouds that had formed from a cluster of thunderstorms just east of us. No matter how many times I see them, I am always fascinated by them!
The difference in average temps between Jacobsville and other areas of the Keweenaw can be noted in the canopy of the woods. Down in Houghton and Hancock, the trees are around 75% filled out, while here in Jake we are only at about 25%. That is quite a difference for just around 15 miles as the crow flies! Within the past week, the grass really greened up and grew as well. I had to do the first cutting of the back lawn yesterday and will do the front lawn tomorrow and hopefully Nora’s brothers lawn on Tuesday.
We have a reasonable chance for some frost tonight. Nora picked up about half of her flowers for the summer and has not put them in the ground yet, but does plan to tomorrow when she gets home from work. The rest of the week and the holiday weekend does not currently hold any chances for frost, so this is most likely the last one for the season.
I have been kept busy with the finishing out of the apartment in the barndominium. We had drywallers come around a month ago and get all of that done. There are some walls with tongue and groove on them and I finished that up last week. So the next task is to prime all the drywall, then paint it. After that, install the flooring an it will be ready for furniture and kitchen cabinets. I will be building the kitchen cabinets and some of the furniture. It will be very nice to have that done! It will be a great place to just hang out and also a great place for friends and family to stay in. There will be some other construction activity happening this autumn, but I will share that as things become more finalized.
The final tidbit I have to share with you for this entry is the status of the Laurium Glacier. The cold March and April and cool May combined with a rather large amount of snow accumulated there this last winter has it still hanging on pretty good. This picture is from a few days ago, but things have not changed too much since. Looking at the temps for the week ahead, there is a reasonable chance that it might make it into June this year! We shall see!
Good Night From the Keweenaw!!
–JD
