What a snowy Saturday for areas in Central and Southern Wisconsin! Airports were close and many accidents were reported across Wisconsin. Our area was right on the fringe of the activity.  The big system is continue to push off to the Northeast moving out of Illinois and Indiana. It will continue to move further from us which means snow chances ending from west to east.

I think this system has been moving slightly faster than models anticipated and expect most of us to just see snow for the next couple hours and the activity turn to flurries overnight.  The exception would be lake effect developing and continuing into tomorrow in the snow belt region.  Already Marathon county has been dropped from the Winter Weather Advisory and would not be surprised if others are dropped as the snow lessens in some areas.  As some of our weather watchers reported it was the southern sections that got the brink of it.  Here are some totals from our areas and a few others that show the brunt this storm put on Sundays weather.

Lindsey – 2"

City Point- 2"

Arkdale- 1.5"

Wausau- 1"

Antigo-1"

Wautoma-0.5"

Merton-3.0"

Mindoro- 5.8"

La Grange- 5.0"

Holmen- 4.3"

Mcintire-3.8"

La Crosse- 3.6"

For other snow reports you can click here. This lists all the reports across the area.

Please be careful if you will be on the roadways at all tonight or tomorrow morning! And send us any more snow reports if you have them.   

Have a good night and be careful!

Meteorologist Krisen Connolly

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Winter Storm Warnings and Winter Weather Advisories are issued for areas just to the south of us.  One of the systems I have been taking about is beginning to strengthen and will move on its trek closer to us.  Here is a good depiction of the system and its path from the National Weather Service office in Chicago and Milwaukee.   

Because of the track of the system we will actually be spared a flat out snow storm for most of the area. (I know some people are hoping to see our first big one!)

Our southern counties could receive over an inch of snow but the greatest accumulation will stay south of Green Bay, around Chicago and in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.  I will keep an eye on this system to make it doesn’t trek any farther north.  It could cause problems for people who are going to be traveling home from the holiday especially at the major hubs of Detroit and Chicago.  Of course if you are going to be on the roadways and it is snowing it could be slick and extra time should be allocated. 

After this system passes we should get a little break but another one will be right on its heels and this one could cause more snow for the area.  I will keep you updated tomorrow!  Have a great night and keep tuned to any changes in this snow storm. 

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

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It was a gorgeous day across the area for most of us.  The north had to deal with the clouds but for the rest of us by the afternoon you couldn’t buy a cloud.  I was up fairly early this morning and saw the overcast skis but by the time Clancy and I went out to play ball I couldn’t have asked for more beautiful weather.  I am sure the shoppers enjoy the nice weather, not having to deal with the rain gear while trying to find all the deals.  The other good part was that temperatures were quiet mild this morning considering the last few days we have dropped into the teens. 

If you are like me I enjoy seeing the snow when Christmas time comes around.  Like last weekend, it looks like we could see some more significant snowfall late in the weekend.  The best accumulations seem to stay to our south but a .5" to a few inches in some areas could be possible.  The system has show a few different tracks over the last couple runs but I think one this is for certain- the heaviest activity will be just to the south and east of us. 

Since it is that time of year where people get out skiing I found a website that has all the Ski Hills in North Central Wisconsin you can click here for it.

Also I found a website that lists places where you can cut down trees in Wisconsin you can find that here.  In my family it was always a big deal to go out and cut our own.  The last few years in Florida we have had to get one of the lot but never the less I have never had a fake one and will continue on my search to find my perfect tree this year!

I hope everyone enjoyed finding that deal on Black Friday! Glad we had very nice weather.  Have a great weekend!

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly 

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Its Black Friday! I hear there are a lot of deals out there to be had. Unfortunately I never have the day off to go to the store and stand in line to get the latest gizmos. I still don’t have a flat screen TV – just too expensive for my budget. My old TV works just fine. I keep hoping that the price will come down, kind-of like portable DVD players. The first one’s on the store shelves were anywhere from $500 to $700 dollars. Now they are less than $50. It sure would be nice if the big plasma and LCD TVs dropped by a factor of 10. I could get a nice 42 inch TV for $100. Doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon. I do keep my eye on the latest lighting and display technology and have my fingers crossed for a newer, cheaper, and more energy efficient technology to develop. Maybe quantum dots could save the day and make it easy on my wallet to buy a big screen. OLED technology from Sony looks great but come on! An 11 inch OLED-TV for $2,500. This one is only for rich early-adopters. A little history here for those of you who followed the LED light bulb story. I interviewed the CEO of Polybrite last year because they were promising a new super efficient LED light bulb. It was going to cost $10 to $15 and be available in major retail outlets. I titled that blog series "a true revolution in lighting". It turned out to be a "what could have been" story. Polybrite did not deliver. I suspect that their potential deal with Sylvania fell through and they could not mass produce the bulbs. Thus, the Polybrite bulb is only for sale online for $50 per bulb. Again, way out of my budget range. Sigh, maybe a couple years from now.

Back to the present. If you are out shopping today you should find good traveling weather. We will end up with partly to mostly sunny skies and high temps in the mid to upper 30s. The clouds will increase tomorrow with temps in the same range by afternoon. Sunday is the day when we could have a dusting of snow. A little snow could affect the Packer game as well. The game time temperature will be around 33 and there will be a NE wind about 10-15 mph.  Not too cold for a Packer game but you will want to dress warm. If you are hoping for enough snow to put you in the holiday spirit you will have to wait until the middle of next week. A small storm system moving through the Midwest on Wednesday could produce an inch or so.

Space News:

Here is something fun for all the kids out there. Alert your local teachers! NASA is having a contest to name the Mars Science Laboratory. It is open to all elementary and high school students in the U.S. Here is the link to the contest. The MSL landing site has been narrowed down to 3 possible areas. I think they should go to a place where there are visible signs of past flowing water. Maybe near the "canals" – old river gorges. Or they could go to a site near, or on the edge of the recently discovered underground glaciers. One thing the scientists are concerned about is possible contamination from earth based life forms – namely bacteria. If they discover evidence of life on Mars, they want to make sure it is from Earth. Here is a quote from one of the mission scientist:

“Even though MSL is not designed as a life detection experiment, any type of microbes, either dead or alive, could confuse the types of signals we are looking for. So we need to be as clean as possible."

NOT DESIGNED FOR LIFE DETECTION! That is rather disappointing. According to my count, NASA has sent 6 different robotic probes to Mars. Isn’t it about time we had one of the rovers designed with at least ONE instrument to detect current or past life? How many more mission are going to run around Mars and look at rocks and dirt? Also, I hope the MSL will have a greater range so that if it lands in an interesting spot, it can quickly drive a few kilometers to a new location. The current rovers have done a great job, but they move at a snail’s pace.

If we plan on sending humans to Mars someday then the contamination concern is a mute point. We will "contaminate" every planet we travel to. I would like to travel to other planets someday and I hope I am not held back because of some concern over "contamination". The biggest concern for extended space travel is radiation. In order to protect future astronauts, some researchers have proposed a magnetic force field for space ships.

Lastly a little update on India’s first lunar mission: They planted a flag on the surface. "Planted" is the key word. They crash landed a probe on the surface and on the probe was the Indian Flag. It was a test to see how future robots might land on the surface.

Have a great weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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I just wanted to write and say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  It is a snowy one in the North were were are receiving a few reports. 

Gile- 4 Inches

Red Cliff- 2 Inches

Wentworth – .7 Inches

Conover- .4 Inches

Hope you had a pleasant holiday.  Tomorrow the weather will clear up with sunshine returning as the clouds dissipate in the morning.  We will see a dry day as everyone gets out and shops for Black Friday.  On Saturday we will keep an eye to a storm system that should slide right to our west and south later on Saturday through the end of the weekend.  This could bring accumulating snow for the area from Saturday night through Sunday from 1-3 inches possible.  We will keep an eye as it could bring some troubles on the roadways as people head home from there holiday vacation. 

I hope everyone enjoyed there big Thanksgiving meal- I know I did! Have a Happy Thanksgiving and be safe. 

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

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It is Thanksgiving and we can all be thankful for some good travel weather. There is a chance of some light snow in the northwoods this afternoon but central Wisconsin should escape with just a few flurries. On Saturday and Sunday another weak storm system will pass through the upper Midwest and bring a chance of light snow but once again hardly any accumulation. It is good for travel but not good for the the current drought situation in Wisconsin. A severe drought persists across most of the viewing area and there is no relief in site. The only locations that could end up with some heavier snow is the lake effect areas of the far north. The current extended computer models do not show much snow for the next week or two. It will be cold enough for the ski areas to make man-made snow so downhill skiers are in luck.

Speaking of cold, our weather watcher from Antigo sent this article about some unfortunate endangered sea-turtles in New England. The turtles apparently can’t handle the recent cold snap. Cynthia remarked that this is unusual considering how AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is supposed to be warming everything up. This brings me back to the comments from Ray the other day about how some people like a warmer winter while others enjoy snow and cold. While some snow would help with our drought, the cold is generally tough on human society, Throughout history, humans have done well when the climate was warmer than average (primarily due to a longer growing season and more regions open to farming) and had a tough time surviving in colder periods. If you look back in the record books, you will find some amazing cold streaks of weather in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some years, there was frost as late as June and as early as August. During the winter of 1899, there were several record lows in the -30 to -40 range in Wausau. My great grandparents used to tell stories of a year when there was at least a trace of snow every month of the year (in Wisconsin). These were lean times in some parts of the country where crops were ruined by cold and snow. Warmer temperatures in the last 50 years have led to a more stable food supply and general well-being for a large majority of the world. Perhaps there might be trouble if the temperature keeps going up. If we could keep the global temperature in the same range as the last 50 years, that would be nice, and some people are trying to figure out ways to control the climate.

Here is an article ranking some of the climate control ideas proposed thus far. These include putting solar shades in orbit around the earth, putting sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere, and burying carbon dioxide (which this recent article claims is possible). Here is another article opining on the same ideas. One alternate method could be to fertilize trees with nitrogen to make them grow bigger and store more carbon. All of the dramatic proposals have been made by people who theorize that AGW is going to be terrible and devastate most life on the planet, so the risk of meddling with the climate are justified. I am not convinced that AGW is or will be as bad as many theorists argue, however, I am not against manipulating the climate/weather to keep it in a comfortable and habitable range. I would hate to see another ice age develop and have much of the world covered with ice or covered with deserts (drier weather typically accompanies ice ages because there is less liquid water available for precipitation and the oceans are a few hundred feet lower). I saw this article about a solar ice maker the other day and it prompted me to think of another way to prevent AGW (if need be). Put floating solar powered ice makers in the arctic ocean to make ice all summer long. More ice at the pole would reflect more sunlight.

Controlling the climate might seem like a wild idea to a lot of people but some scientists speculate that we have already prevented a new ice age from occurring.

What about the far future? Given what we know about star formation and evolution, there will be a day (perhaps 5 billion years from now) when the sun becomes a red giant and expands to engulf the earth. Talk about global warming! Don’t worry, some people are already making plans to move the earth when the time comes. Now that would be quite an engineering feat.

Lastly a viewer photograph from the Northwoods. Steve and Bonnie Januptich from Phillips sent in this photograph of a bear balancing delicately on a tree limb. Steve and Bonnie inform me that it is an apple tree. The bear must have a sweet tooth. It is amazing how well bears can climb and balance. I wonder however, how many of them fall and embarrass themselves in front of their bear friends. It has to happen once in a while. Have a happy Thanksgiving! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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ki This post is going to be a montage of news articles and weather!

First- We had a gorgeous day across the area! How can you beat lots of sunshine and temptress in the upper 30′s.  Sadly enough tomorrow clouds and a chance for snow will return.  As you are heading home from that dinner if you live North of Wausau just be extra cautious on the roadways as any snow that does fall can make them slick.  Light accumulations will be seen across the area with 1-2" possible in our northern areas.  Otherwise this weekend we will keep in a few light snow chances as disturbances will pass around a low pressure system that will slide to the south of us.   Across the nation the biggest issues will be the areas that say the action today. This would include the Southwest- Utah, New Mexico and California and also the Northeast which could see more snow in New York and the mountain regions. 

I also read an interesting article today about our hurricane season.  It was a record breaking one in many different areas including For the first time on record, six consecutive tropical cyclones (Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike) made landfall on the U.S. mainland and a record three major hurricanes (Gustav, Ike and Paloma) struck Cuba. This is also the first Atlantic season to have a major hurricane (Category 3) form in five consecutive months (July: Bertha, August: Gustav, September: Ike, October: Omar, November: Paloma). , if you want to take a look here is the link:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20081126_hurricaneseason.html

We were also sent this link from our one of our weather watchers.  It takes about Endangered Sea Turtles. Being from Florida and seeing the nests personally this article made me sad.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2008-11-25-turtle_N.htm?csp=34

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

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Holiday Forecast Update: It still looks like great travel weather for today with some nuisance level snowfall off-and-on from Thursday through Sunday. The highest chance of light accumulation (an inch or so) will occur on Thanksgiving Day in the Northwoods and across Central Wisconsin on Saturday. Some light snow showers or flurries will be in the air on Friday and Sunday. If you are traveling to other parts of the country it looks like Southern California will have some airport delays today and that troublesome weather will move into the desert southwest on Thursday and Friday.

AGW News:

It is hard to avoid this subject since it makes the news every day – and it is almost always bad, bad, and worse. Here is an article about how population increases will affect the environment. The commentary is about how population increases are already ensured because birth rates are higher than death rates and significantly so in Africa. The U.N. expects the population to grow to 9.2 billion by 2050 then start to decline. That means we will be adding about 2 billion people to the planet. While this presents a challenge I don’t see the need to use the terminology "population explosion". Population growth is leveling off. It was once thought the population would be 25 billion sometime this century and this lead many environmental doom-sayers to forecast an implosion of human society. Even though population growth rates are leveling off, there are still plenty of Armageddon predictions to make headlines.

According to some recent data, the oceans are becoming more acidic faster than thought. This is another side effect of fossil fuel usage – according to leading theories. Also, rising oceans will cause devastation along coastlines. (aside: if oceans are going to rise a foot or two, why are we even contemplating re-building New Orleans – a city that exists below sea level?). Not only that, Nitrogen deposition in the world’s soils will devastate agriculture. All this bad news. You would think we would all be dead already, things are so bad. Maybe I am a little bit incredulous because I don’t see any bad effects here in Wisconsin, or in the Midwest, or in most of the U.S. I see a lot of urban expansion but not much environmental devastation. Has anyone seen the environment collapsing here in Wisconsin?

I don’t want to completely dismiss warnings of trouble ahead, however, I have been hearing about "population explosions", "Global Warming", and "environmental Armageddon" my entire life and before that we had books like "Silent Spring" and "The Population Bomb". These went above saying there was a chance of terrible things happening to saying it was guaranteed. It didn’t happen….yet. After so many years of warnings, maybe I am getting numb to it all. It doesn’t help that the climate models have be predicting overly warm temperatures for the last 15 years.

On a positive note, an analysis of soil carbon indicates global warming could be over-estimated. In the article you will find the surprising fact that the earth’s soils contribute more than 10 times the amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year than human activities.

Have a great weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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Nationwide the travel forecast is shaping up to be pretty decent.  For the entire Midwest, tomorrow is looking like a perfect travel day with sunny skies and light winds. 

If you are driving a far distance or flying somewhere, the only places of concern would be rain and snow showers in northern New England and surprisingly a soggy day in Arizona.  Both could pose minor airport delays. 

By Thanksgiving day there will be showers and thunderstorms in the deep south, and for us an approaching clipper system to the northwest.  This clipper will be our main forecast concern over the Holiday.  Forecast models continue to output very little snow with this system.  But I think if everything tracks right we could see minor snow accumulations Thursday night and into Friday, certainly enough to make some slick roadways….maybe an inch in the northwoods.  Scattered Snow showers will then continue Friday and into Saturday.  Again by no means will this be a significant snowstorm.

As far as flying over the weekend, the East coast again looks to be the only real trouble spot, especially late on Sunday.  A developing coastal low could bring a good deal of rain and snow along the north Atlantic Coast from D.C. to Boston.  There is quite a bit of uncertainty with the development of this system. 

With travel looking pretty good this holiday, here is a quick look back at one of the worst Thanksgiving holiday travel headaches

1983 – The "Great Thanksgiving Weekend Blizzard" hit Denver, CO. The storm produced 21.5 inches of snow in 37 hours, closing Stapleton Airport for 24 hours. The snow and wind closed interstate highways around Denver. Visibility at Limon CO was down to zero for 24 hours. (The Weather Channel

Meteorologist Brian Niznansky

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I like to hear your comments about the science and weather topics covered here in the blog. Yesterday, Sherry left a passionate comment about getting the U.S. off of fossil fuels and promoted a new Manhattan project to develop alternative energy. I of course share the sentiment to create a new energy infrastructure, however, I am wary about government involvement. The last time the government delved into the green energy arena it ended up spending billions on grain ethanol which many people now say is useless. It might not be completely useless as those ethanol plants could perhaps be converted to produce more energy efficient bio-diesel or even butanol. It is typical for the government to throw all its weight behind one specific effort and then to later find out it was a waste of money. I am more favorable to general tax credits for ANY type of alternative energy purchases. That way, the pool of innovation is wide and the market can decide the eventual winner (or winners) – the technology that makes the most sense for the most people. Thanks for the comment Sherry!

Ray left a comment a while back relating to the weather. I often say during the late Fall that if it is going to be cold, we might as well have some snow. Ray thinks we should look at it a bit differently – "since there is no snow, we might as well have some warmer weather". It is not that I cheer for poor weather, I am just a realist and I know since it is just the beginning of Winter, I know any warm trend will be fleeting. I am also aware of how much the winter tourism economy depends on snow, so I generally hope for at least normal amounts of snow. This week, I would rather not have much snow because a lot of people will be traveling. It looks like Mother Nature will cooperate at least through midday Thursday, Thanksgiving day. Late Thursday it looks like a cold front will move into the area and bring a 40%  chance of snow with up to an inch accumulation possible. A few snow showers could occur on Friday as well, but there will not be much accumulation. After high temps in the 30s for the next 3 days, a colder trend will develop for the weekend. High temps on Saturday and Sunday will only be in the upper 20s. The trickiest travel weather in the country on Wednesday and Thursday will be in the desert southwest. Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico could experience some rain and snow and some flights could be delayed.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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