Ilsa Matthes | Daily Press Youths enjoy a pleasant day in hammocks at Ludington Park recently. The long range weather forecast for the area calls for an average summer overall in the Upper Peninsula. Summer officially arrives on Sunday.

IRON MOUNTAIN — A week-long heat wave has come to an end while a long-range forecast from the National Weather Service suggests the Upper Peninsula might see an average summer overall.

The Climate Prediction Center has a fairly neutral temperature outlook through the end of the season, as well as no clear indication for precipitation.

The summer solstice arrives at 11:32 p.m. Sunday, June 20, as the Northern Hemisphere receives sunlight at the most direct angle of the year.

La Nina, the periodic cooling of water in the central Pacific Ocean., has ended and neutral conditions are now present, NWS forecaster Brad Pugh said. That, along with other factors, leads forecasters to predict hot months ahead, but the trend is less likely for a slice of the Midwest that includes the Upper Peninsula.

For the three-month period from July through September, the CPC calls for a 36% chance of above-normal temperatures at Iron Mountain-Kingsford and a 29% chance of below normal.

“Beginning in July and through November, above-normal temperatures are favored through the entire continental U.S.,” Pugh said. For areas of the Southwest experiencing extreme drought, the CPC sees a 60% chance of above-normal temperatures this summer.

A heat dome that settled recently over the northcentral U.S. has been more severe just west of the Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., have had the earliest seven-day period of consecutive temperatures at 90 degrees or above on record, said Jessica Storm, AccuWeather meteorologist.

Many parts of the Upper Peninsula are showing abnormally dry conditions after below-normal precipitation in May.