Jordan Beck | Daily Press Stepbrothers Eddy Larson, left, and Gavin Barinotti play with toy boats at the Escanaba Municipal Beach Thursday afternoon. Summer officially starts today.

ESCANABA — Summer officially starts today, but Matt Zika — a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS) Marquette Office — said warm weather has been off to a slow start locally in 2019.

“Obviously, this whole year has been very cool compared to our long-term average,” he said.

Across the Upper Peninsula, Zika said temperatures have been below normal each month from January to the present. The peninsula was 5.5 degrees below normal in May, and so far, temperatures in June have been 2.5 degrees below average.

Precipitation levels have been higher than average in the U.P. throughout 2019, as well.

“The start of this year has been incredibly wet,” Zika said.

The same has been true across the state. On Thursday, the Michigan Legislature approved the allocation of $15 million to a low-interest loan program meant to help farmers grappling with crop loss as a result of these conditions. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also asked the federal government this week to approve farmers for disaster assistance because the wet spring made it hard to plant crops.

In most areas of the U.P., precipitation levels have been between 3.5 and 8 inches above normal since January.

Looking ahead, Zika said current temperature trends will likely continue to affect the U.P.

“Overall, the temperatures will probably average a little bit below normal throughout the summer season,” he said.

However, Zika noted temperatures will likely be closer to the long-term average than they have been recently.

The NWS could not reliably predict precipitation levels in the U.P. for the coming months.

“Precipitation is a little bit more of a challenge for us to try to get a handle on,” Zika said.

He said a major reason this is the case is because showers tend to “pop up” during the summer.

Even if precipitation levels during the summer are normal, Zika said the average precipitation for the year would still be significantly higher than normal locally.