City WeatherOn Labor Day (9/4/23) our station recorded a maximum temperature of 95.7° which eclipsed our previous all-time high of 95.2° on June 6, 2021. We have been (unofficially) recording weather at this location since July 2015.
Our maximum heat index on Monday 9/4 was 102°. The dewpoint topped out at 72°. It was a very muggy day by Upper Michigan standards (dewpoints typically in the 40s/50s in early September).
Last night around 9 PM EDT, we experienced a deluge of rain during a severe thunderstorm. Our automatic tipping spoon recorded the second highest rain rate in the 8 years we’ve been online (10.7″/hr). Overall, we picked up just over 1.5″ of rain in half an hour with about 1″ falling in the first 15 minutes of the storm.
We clocked a 37 mph wind gust during the storm. However, each wind measurement must last up to 2.5 seconds to be recorded by our system. It’s quite possible higher, shorter-lived winds were present during that storm as radar had indicated up to 60 mph gusts according to the severe thunderstorm alert issued by the National Weather Service.
There was lightning aplenty but no hail. We got quite the hail storm on Saturday July 22nd. The entire property was coated with pea size pellets.
Marquette is running WELL above normal for July rainfall. So far 4.89″ has been recorded by our automatic gauge (which is checked against a manual gauge daily). Marquette’s 30-year normal rainfall for July is 2.77″.
Incidentally, the third highest rain rate in our history (9.75″/hr) was recorded less than two weeks ago on July 15th when we picked up 0.64″ for the day.
Just a note…
If you are curious why we experienced an AQI (Air Quality Index) over 400 during the lunch hour it’s because my neighbor was burning trash. Otherwise, the air quality has been good to moderate today.
Researchers sometimes come to the site and examine the Weather History for a given day — sometimes years afterward — and might furrow their brow at such an extreme outlier not recorded by any other nearby station. Hopefully they find this blog post.
Previously, if you wished to navigate the website in a mobile device you needed to go (back) up to the top left navigation menu. As of today, if you have scrolled to the bottom of the page, you can simply access the navigation in the footer. This has always been the case for those using PCs & Macs.
I had struggled to preserve the navigation in smaller viewports without it appearing cramped in that space… until now. I will leave the “Back to Top” links in place for those who want a quick way to start over from the top of the page.
Also I have added a light blue background color to distinguish this section from surrounding content. In night mode, the footer will turn to a deep navy.
As always, the site is completely responsive which means you can view it on any modern device with the screen size/orientation of your choice. You can even put it in a small browser window when using a computer alongside your other app(s). Home page conditions will update every minute by default and the entire page will refresh every 10 minutes.
I invite you to make full use of the site. Each page is a collection of freely-available, unique resources not found in one space elsewhere.
As it stands we have decent site engagement. That said, plenty of folks — even longtime regular users — have never left the home page. I assure you, we don’t put filler pages on the site. It’s all useful!
We have acquired & installed an air quality sensor as part of our real-time atmospheric telemetry. You can view it’s 10 minute average Air Quality Index (AQI) at marquette.purpleair.com.
Given our proximity to vast tracts of unspoiled wilderness, especially to our north in Canada, we want to be prepared if there are plumes of air from forest fires that invade Marquette similar to NYC/DC this past week!
We are still in the testing phases of this device. Once it appears to be reliable & accurate we may publish the AQI reading in the “Weather Conditions” section of the home page (CITY).
UPDATE 06/12/23 10:30 PM:
Air Quality readings are now available on our home page! I have included range information (0-500) for this reading and a couple others too. You can now click on any header in the Weather Conditions section and it will give you a “tooltip” explaining that measurement. I see this as a great way to educate visitors and enhance engagement with the site.
(Auto night: 6:16 PM - 6:58 AM)