No, not Detroit, Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor, or any other city, town, village, or hamlet in the southern half of Michigan. The Michigan town that holds the state record for highest recorded temperature is.....

Mio.
That’s right. Mio.

Mio sits in Oscoda County, just 32 miles east of Grayling, up near the knuckle of the index finger in Michigan’s mitten. Plus, it’s surrounded by trees. Yet, it was our hottest place ever, when it reached 112 degrees on July 13, 1936. Mio’s hottest temperature was followed by Saginaw at 111 degrees and Flint at 108 degrees, both on the same date.

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It would seem to make sense that the further south you go, the hotter it would get, right? So why does it get so hot in those northern Michigan towns? It’s believed to be caused by all the sandy areas blown inland off the Great Lakes sand dunes. You’ve walked on the beach into very hot sand, right? Oh, yeah…sand gets super-hot.

What’s also weird is that these areas not only get the hottest, they get the coldest. The town of Vanderbilt in Otsego County holds the record for the coldest recorded temperature in Michigan: 51 degrees below zero.

A quick note about Mio:
It’s believed the town got its name from Marla Deyarmond. In 1881, the family had a nickname for her, “Mioe”. She was well-liked in the community and residents would go spend an afternoon at ‘Aunt Mioe’s’ since there was not much else to do. Marla was the wife of the town’s founder, Henry Deyarmond.

The gallery below contains a good handful of old Mio photos, giving you a look how it appeared well over 100 years ago…

Vintage Photos of Mio

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