During this time of drought is a good time for me to mention a new interactive tool on our website waow.com. It is called iTRAK Interactive Radar. “We track storms” is our motto here in the weather office and now YOU can track storms as well. Click here to go to the main iTRAK page. If the link is not working then you can go to the waow.com homepage and click on the iTRAK banner in the upper right-hand corner. Once you get to the iTRAK page you will see a map of Northcentral Wisconsin displaying any precipitation in the area. Underneath the banner at the top of the page you will see a couple of tutorials – one by me that explains the radar interface and one by Brian that explains the “FutureTRAK” option. With iTRAK, not only can you investigate precipitation in your hometown and in our region, you can see what is going on in other parts of the country. With FutureTRAK you can view a computer model forecast of conditions expected over the next couple of days. Check it out. Play around with it. It will be a good tool to keep track of severe storms this Spring and Summer. Let me know if you have any questions. You can leave a comment in the blog or send me an email weather@waow.com
You will notice some rain on iTRAK today, but mainly in southern Wisconsin. It looks like the far southern part of our area will have a slight chance of showers tonight, then dry weather will prevail until the upcoming weekend. On Saturday and Sunday another storm will be near Wisconsin so there is at least a slight chance of showers. Although I would love to see some rain, I am not very optimistic at this point. Not only will this week be dry, the general jet stream pattern will remain unfavorable for significant rainfall through the end of the month. We have a severe drought, but it is still a time of year when we can “get by”. Once May hits, gardens and crops will have to go in and that is the point we will definitely need rain. As long as it rains enough from May through August, we will be able to grow food. April showers would be nice but not very many are in the works this year. The upside of a drought is that there are usually a lot of sunny days. Current drought situation across the U.S. If we don’t get much rain for the rest of this month, Northcentral Wisconsin could get bumped up into the extreme drought category.
Have a good work week! Meteorologist Justin Loew.
This post was written by jloew on April 13, 2009
