MARQUETTE, Mich. (WJMN) – On what is typically one of the busiest travel days of the year, a storm carrying high winds and heavy snow through Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming, arrived with force on Wednesday morning in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Upper Peninsula Power Company reported more than 1,000 customers without power by 8:00 a.m. Wednesday. There have been multiple reports of trees down, some of them blocking roadways, adding to the deteriorating road conditions. You can report an outage or keep track of their progress here.
Police in Iron Mountain are cautioning drivers, because outages have knocked some traffic lights out of service.
The Michigan Department of Transportation is trying to keep travelers safe. Including the Mi Drive page. It provides current conditions on roads, reports of incidents, and snapshots from roadway cameras. We observed some icicles forming on the camera near the intersection of US-2 and M-28 near Wakefield in Gogebic County. By 8:00 a.m. they had received about 10 inches of snow.
While MDOT regularly updates its page, they also included some added driving advice in a post on Wednesday morning.
Those nasty wind speeds we mentioned are also playing a part of travel trouble. Along with reduced visibility, those hoping to make the journey between the Upper and Lower peninsula will have to contend with wind across the Mackinac Bridge. Be sure to check their site for updates.
Marquette Central Dispatch said, “Forgotten Thanksgiving dinner ingredients do not count as a decent reason to travel.”
For those heading south towards Wisconsin, be sure to call ahead, it’s a tale of two kinds of driving for them.
We will add to this story with changing conditions throughout the day. You can keep up with the latest on our weather page.
While the winds picked up and snow continued to fall in Marquette, about 60 miles to the south in Escanaba, our media partners at Radio Results Network said as of 12:20 p.m. they have had a rain snow mixture with half an inch of slush.
