Tomorrow is the first day of spring…meteorologically speaking!  There are actually two different starts to spring! For us weather geeks it starts tomorrow but the real astronomical start to spring is on the vernal equinox.  This year spring begins on March 20th. 

On a different note, I think this article is really good.  Brian recently blogged about storm names. Certain meteorologists were naming the storms that have been hitting the northeast over the past couple months. It seemed it was becoming a little ridiculous.  It is now turing into quite a controversy between the National Weather Service and a certain profit weather service.  This all started after the last name( which was given for the storm the end of last week) snowicane.

Social Media.  It is something everyone has heard of and is becoming the normal way to communicate in the 21st century.  I think this article related to yesterdays Tsunami warnings brings up some really good points.   It shows how Twitter can be used to peoples advantage.  It highlights certain ways like having friends in different time zones being able to wake up others thousands of miles away. This of course helping them prepare for what could be coming.  It also talks about how a community can support an area going through a disaster.  Another point is first hand views.  On almost every news outlet using peoples first hand view has become more and more popular.  Oh the world we live in, all tied to computers or our handhelds.

Lastly I have to say I am sad at the outcome of USA vrs Canada.  Hockey is one of my favorite sports and I was really getting my spirits up after we scored the second goal. But hey silver is still great! What a great Olympics we saw.  I have to say I am sad they are all over.

Have a great night! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Uncategorized

The top headline today of courseis the earthquake in Chile.  I couldn’t believe when I saw it this morning considering what had just happened it Haiti. 

 I guess if there is goodness the death totals are not what they are in Haiti.  We also luckily missed out in Hawaii were Tsunami warning where going off through the morning and day.  Still such a devastation.  I have listed some of the links that I have been looking at through out the day.  Alot of these sites have been updated almost every hour.

1) Updated Article on the Quake

2) Washington Post Article

3) Japan preparing for Tsunami

4) Earthquake affects the famous Robinson Crusoe Islands

5) Another article mentioning all the after shocks

6) This has some powerful videos to look at it

7) US Geology Site

I found this graphic with the top 10 record setting earthquakes.  It states that the same spot had the worst earthquake since 1900 occurring in 1960.  It was a stronger earthquake of 9.5 killing 1600 people and leaving 20 million homeless.  I think looking at the graphic gives a good representation of magnitude although some less powerful have caused much more devastation.

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Natural Disasters

Normally here in Wisconsin a north wind means colder weather and that was the case earlier in the week, but now it is Friday the wind is still out of the north and the temps are getting warmer. What is going on? This is something that caught me by surprise earlier in the winter as well. Take a look at the ice analysis over Lake Superior and you will not find much ice for this time of year, which is normally the when there is the most ice. The temperature over the open water is above 32 so any cold air from Canada is modified. Still, even when Lake Superior is ice-free we have have some bitter cold weather develop. What is assisting the warmer temps this time around (for today and through the weekend) is the big snowstorm on the east coast. The circulation from this storm system is taking mild air off of the Atlantic and sending it to the northeast into Canada. That air then moves westward toward central Canada and then eventually southward over Lake Superior. So even though we have a persistent north wind temps will not be getting colder over the next couple of days. I expect high temps in the low to mid 30s from today all the way through Wednesday of next week. By late next week high temps could reach the upper 30s. For snow-lovers, there is not much in the forecast for the next 10 days or so. It looks like the next chance of heavier snow (or rain) will be during the second week of March. Knowing our luck, it will probably be another miss.

Alternative Energy News:

I like to keep track of alternative energy developments because I can’t wait for the day when we don’t have to use fossil fuels so much. Fossil fuels have been extremely useful and easy to use. They have helped raise most of human society out of subsistence living. We wouldn’t enjoy our modern standard of living without them. However, they do cause pollution, and of course many people think carbon emissions are raising the temp of the planet. Take automobiles for example, the internal combustion engine is complicated, loud, and it pollutes. Some people think the pollution will only get worse over the next few decades, that is unless, we can switch over to cleaner engines (electric) and cleaner sources of energy such as solar, nuclear fusion, geothermal, etc.

So what is the good news lately? More places are installing the necessary infrastructure. Even as close as Chicago a new electric vehicle charging station is being installed. In order to help the electric cars travel farther we will need better batteries. By using a nanonet of titanium disilicide in lithium batteries Boston College researchers have created much better performance on most battery metrics (mass production likely a few years away). Speaking of traveling electric, the world’s largest solar pwered boat was recently unveiled. The owners plan to sail around the world on solar power alone. I was amazed to find out that this yacht can hold 50 passengers AND only cost 24 million. Sure, 24 million is expensive, but not as much as I would expect for a solar powered boat.

In addition, Norwegians are planning to build the largest wind turbine in the world. It will be as much as three times more powerful than existing wind turbines. They hope that building bigger will increase the profitability of wind turbines and wind farms. Also, the US government is going to guarantee loans for the building of new nuclear power plants.

Of course, there is also negative out there. Not everything is peachy. One problem is building new power plants. Environmentalist opposition completely shut down nuclear power growth in the US for the last 3 decades and might again derail newer, cleaner, more efficient plants (including very promising thorium plants) in the future. Believe it or not, environmental policies are also blocking the building of wind farms and solar power plants. Of all people, Diane Feinstein (Democrat, California) has proposed a bill to block the building of some solar power plantsin the Mojave Desert. Environmental regulations had already delayed the 400 megawatt Ivanhoe Solar Project by a couple years, now Diane Feinstein apparently wants to kill it off along with a few others. This is very reminiscent of the Kennedy family going NIMBY and utterly rejecting any thought of wind farms being constructed off the Massachusetts coast a few years ago.

But it is not only environmental regulations and NIMBY objections creating roadblocks for more alternatives. Economics play a big part as well. This recent report suggests that solar panel manufacturing in Germany could collapse. All of their solar companies could shut down because the government is scaling back subsidies. A German wind turbine manufacturer is also having trouble. They were planning on building some turbines in Taiwan but the government there does not want to pay a high enough price to cover the cost of installation and operation. In general, wind energy has been a money losing effort thus far (of course there are many other benefits besides monetary ones). The spending of stimulus money in the US for wind power has not led to job growth (as was touted would happen). This was the experience in Spain as well. There was a net loss of job in Spain after energy stimulus spending. The lesson is that we still have a way to go before alternative energy becomes profitable. Once it does, I think we will see mass adoption.

We have also seen a lot of promising research and products not materialize for whatever reason. Do you remember the company EEstor? I have blogged about it a couple of times. They made headlines many years ago with an announcement that they created a cheap supercapacitor that could power all our electric vehicles. Many years later and nothing has materialized. The electric car company Zenn bet their future on the EEstor product and they are still waiting as well. I could go into more of the details about the delays and controversy but I don’t have the time. Luckily I found a regularly updated blog about EEstor and Zenn. Check it out to see if we can expect anything from them in the future or if it is all just vaporware.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy

Ok ok enough already with the silly names for winter storms.  Back with the D.C. storm it was kind of funny…The February 8 Blizzard took on names like “Snowmegaddon” to “Snowpocalypse”.  This was clever and it really was a massive storm.  They even made T-shirts for it…kind of like the “I survived Hurricane Andrew” T-Shirts.  This storm lived up to it’s billing and some.  It deserved whatever name given.

Well, leave it up to Accuweather to take it a step further and overdue it.  We now have “Snowicane” for tonight’s storm affecting New York.  Comparisons have already been made that this system will be like a Hurricane, only with a lot of snow….hardly.  The only thing comparable to a hurricane will be it’s strong center of low pressure, which in turn creates strong winds.  But the winds with this storm will be spread out yet weaker than a hurricane.  The pressure gradient scales over a much larger area when compared to a tropical cyclone. 

They might be overdoing it a bit with this one.  What’s the next snowstorm going to be name…. Megasnowisterphoon???

Never the less this will end up being a potent winter storm.  About 5 to 8 inches of snow could fall in Manhattan, with up to 2 feet upstate.  The wind could also gust up to 60 miles per hour.  Winds this high will not only cause white out conditions, but will also snap countless trees weighed down by the heavy snow.

For a complete storm break down…check out this link.

Meteorologist Brian Niznansky

Posted under Winter Weather

The weather is getting warmer and we are getting closer to Spring. Time to start thinking about severe weather – anyway, training to spot severe weather. The National Weather Service of Green Bay and La Crosse have issued their storm spotter training schedules. The Green Bay schedule covers most of ourarea. La Crosse covers the far south and west. The Duluth office (which covers Price, Iron, and Ashland counties) has not yet released their schedule but they do have a nice page that explains how easy it isto become an official skywarn spotter. If you enjoy watching the weather and would like to help save the lives of people in Northcentral Wisconsin, then I would suggest attending one of these classes this year. We have not experienced much severe weather over the last couple of years, so it might be building up for 2010.

How about a follow up on the Bloom Energy fuel cell device that I blogged about earlier in the week. As I expected there was some flowery hyped-up language coming from the press event. Politicians called it “transformative” and “revolutionary”, which it is not. It is just a fuel cell. It is a very good fuel cell power plant and has the potential to generate electricity much more efficiently. But it is not going to transform the whole energy infrastructure of the planet or even of just one state – California, where the announcement was made. This device will not allow you to go “off the grid”. For most of us it would mean switching from the electricity grid to the natural gas grid. If you had your own biofuel production plant at your house, then you could go off the grid. Alternatively you could store hundreds of cubic liters of natural gas at your house and then run the Bloom Box for a few years. The point is, it needs fuel to operate. Some of the drawbacks: Price. The model for sale right now costs $800,000. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, at my house it would take me about 1,000 years to recoup the cost of just one “server” as the company calls them. Perhaps the large units shown in the recent articles are not meant for home use. Still, the price would have to come down by a factor of at least 200 before it would be economical for most home users. The company does expect the cost to come down to about $3,000 in a decade. And therein lies another knock against the “revolutionary” claim. In a decade we will likely have much more efficient and cheaper solar panels which are much more environmentally friendly than using a fuel cell and natural gas. Here is an article comparing the bloom box to other forms of alternative energy. Technology review also analyzed some of the positives and negatives. Again, this is a great new fuel cell. Using the Bloom Energy “servers” could help cut pollution and bring down the cost of electricity (as long as the price of natural gas stays low). Combining some of Bloom’s devices with other smart grid technology could theoretically make the US much more efficient when it comes to energy production and use. I don’t want to sound too negative. I am just noting that I don’t think it is “revolutionary”.

Since I mentioned improvements in solar power (above), I thought I would mention this recent breakthrough: Silicon nanowires embeded in polymer can efficiently generate electricity. This is a long way from commercial production but an indication of things to come. This advancement could lead to much cheaper solar cells since they do not use as much silicon.

In another interesting development, Dow Chemical and United Solar Ovonic are now producing and testing solar shingles. The idea has been around a while but it has been a difficult engineering problem to solve. No word on cost, but no doubt they will be expensive at the beginning. I would also be concerned about their toughness with regards to hail. I wouldn’t want to roof my house with tens of thousands of dollars worth of solar shingles only to have them destroyed in one hail storm.

Lastly, as you could have guessed, the US Drought Monitor shows no change in the drought conditions here in Wisconsin over the last week. I won’t belabor the point, since I probably complain too much about the dry weather.

Have a fine Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Drought, Severe Weather

For the second day in a row a smaller scale area of low pressure has caused big time headaches to evening rush hour drivers in parts of the state.  Yesterday the wintry mess was in Green Bay, and today it was Milwaukee’s turn.  This system is getting quite the reputation for quick hard hitting bursts of snow.  Here in Wausau we even got in on some the action yesterday with a quick 3/4″ of snow in just about a half an hour.The Green Bay area picked up about 2 to 4 inches yesterday.  With the help of some lake enhancement…The Milwaukee/Racine/Kenosha area picked up around 3 to 6 inches of snow today. 

Check out some Freeway camera pics earlier from the Wisconsin DOT….

Check out how simaler yesterday’s radar in GRB was to Milwaukee’s Radar in Mke this afternoon…

In both cases, these were extremely difficult events to predict due to how isolated the snow was.  This reminds me of a snow event we had couple years ago down in Stevens Point.  Those in Point may remember the late April snowfall of 2008.  Over 6 inches of snow fell in the city.  You may also remember how this was quite a surprise.  Here is a blog I wrote back in April of 2008.

So why the surprise?  What was different today, yesterday, and in April of 2008 from say a snowstorm that was forecasted several days in advance?  Well each of the mentioned snow events was convective.  Convective snow can be compared to scattered showers in the summertime.  Think of during the summer when all of a sudden you get a downpour…it lasts for 15 minutes then goes away.  Convective snow showers form from the similar process of quick air updrafts.  Bottom line….when dealing with convection (rain or snow) your forecast confidence in when, where, and how much goes down quite a bit.  Synoptic(large scale) meteorological patterns are a lot easier to forecast.  For example, we have a pretty good idea how much snow you classic ”panhandle hook” snowstorm is going to produce days in advance.  Unfortunately when dealing with convection, you almost have to wait up until the start of the event before you can get a pretty good idea of exactly who is going to get what.  Then today in Milwaukee when you throw lake enhancement into the picture, that adds a whole other element.  The good news is we learn from these events.

Meteorologist Brian Niznansky

Posted under Winter Weather

A few more article have come out about the topic I was discussing yesterday.  The possibility of flood across the Midwest this spring.

I want to direct attention to the statement made by the National Weather Service.  It states and precipitation has been 150-300% above normal for the entire Red River Basin.  Right now there is at 96% for major flooding in Fargo, ND and a 73% of Major flooding in Grand Forks, ND.  For more info and statistics check out the article.

Another article was published by our local NWS office in La Crosse.  This is about rivers and flooding closer to home.  It is the second of the flood outlooks that they have put out. It is useful if you or some of your family lives around a river.

I was having some blanks with what to write about so I am just going to share a few article I found:

Apparently Lizards play their own form of Rock-Paper-Scissors…. who would have ever guessed?

Night shuttle landing and spectacular photos.

A very extensive article about forecasting.  It talks about how people want forecasts at exact moments but how we have improved accuracy since 1975.  Also talks about extensive tools that we use to forecast. It is a long article but fairly interesting.

And I finally can talk again! Not perfect but I have a voice!

Have a great night! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Flooding, Science, Space, Storms, Uncategorized

Just last week I was not prepared to say we had “turned the corner” out of winter, that we had seen the worst. This week I think I am going to lay down the gauntlet. Today is certainly cold but there isn’t much cold weather on the horizon. By Friday, over the weekend, and into early next week high temps will rise back into the 30s. And of course, next week is March, so it becomes less likely that we will have an extended period of cold and snowy weather. When we have a snowstorm in March it is usually a heavier one but the snow melts pretty quick. The one year I can remember when the snow stuck around was after the massive blizzard in 1997 (March 13-14th). during that storm 28 inches of snow fell in parts of Waushara county. 19 inches fell in Wisconsin Rapids. That snow lingered into late March. We had near record cold weather as well with a low of -9 in Wausau on the 16th of March in 1997. While we could see a big snowstorm at some point in March this year, I don’t think it will prolong Winter all that much. Because it is an El Nino year, it is unlikely we will have any below zero either. So where does that put us? Permission to start thinking about Spring!

No time to blog about other themes of the day but I will share a link to some beautiful initial images from the WISE satellite. When I see the IR image of the Andromeda, I immediately think “new wallpaper” for my computer.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under Space, Winter Weather

I have seen a few stories about this topic so I thought I would bring the attention to what forecasters are worrying about.  I don’t think many people can forget the flooding we saw just two years ago across the area, in fact I know we actually sent a team down to Iowa to cover the story.  It was devastation for so many states including Wisconsin.  We have a family friend who lives across from us and he spent almost the whole summer in the Midwest working for FEMA because of all the devastation.

Unfortunately we may be bracing for another bad year.  The last year bad floods occurred in 1993, 1995 and 2008.  Right now the National Weather Service has issued “high probability” of flooding for the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.  One hydrologist mentions the problem is that the ground froze and what would have normal run off didn’t get the chance and it actually froze in the soil.

The worst spots include the Red River Valley in the Dakotas,  Upper Mississippi River including Iowa to St. Louis.  The town of the company that actually owns Channel 9, is in Quincy, Ill  which is part of the target area. 

The good news is many of these areas are aware of the possible flooding and know how to prepare and handle it as best as possible.  Of course certain towns can build levees to try and stop the flooding in certain areas. Many towns are saying with the factors right now look worse than two years ago.  What are those factors? Significant winter storms that produce abundant snowfall, and heavy rains last fall.

It seems what would help the area the most would be a dry spring. Lets hope for the best so these areas don’t have to go through what they did two years ago.

To look at flood level around the US click here.

Have a great night! Kristen Connolly

Posted under Flooding, forecast, Spring

The weather still looks amazingly quiet for the next 7 to 10 days. The heaviest snow in central Wisconsin during this period will fall today. Some spots could pick up an inch accumulation. In the far north there will be some lake effect snow tonight and tomorrow. A LAKE EFFECT SNOW WARNING is in effect for Iron and Ashland counties from noon today through 6pm Wednesday. There is no warning or advisory in effect for Vilas county at this time but I still expect 2 to 4 inches accumulation in the typical snowbelts. Even though not much snow is on the way in the near future, there will not be any significant warm weather. High temps will be in the 20s tomorrow and Thursday and then rise into the lower 30s by early next week. If you are hoping for some 40 degree weather you will likely have to wait until the 1st or second week of March.

So, how about some energy news. Some of you might have caught wind of a new revolutionary energy device that will be officially unveiled tomorrow. It is called the Bloombox and produced by a company named Bloom Energy. I hate to rain on everyone’s parade, but it is not a “revolution” in energy. What it could be is a significant step in the right direction toward cleaner and more efficient energy generation. So what is the Bloombox? It is a fuel cell. That’s it. Fuel cells have been around for decades and many are in operation in niche markets. You are probably most familiar with the hydrogen fuel cell and the proposed “hydrogen highway/economy”. Hydrogen fuel cells use hydrogen and oxygen in a reaction that produces electricity and water as byproducts. Many people hope to use hydrogen fuel cells in cars because it would be very clean. There would be no emissions out of the “tailpipe” but water. For the astute reader, you will immediately ask, where does the hydrogen and oxygen come from? The oxygen will just come from the atmosphere. The hydrogen will have to be produced somehow and this is one of the big hurdles for mass adoption. The best/cleanest way to produce the hydrogen would be with solar panels (or maybe wind turbines), but then you have to wonder, why convert electricity into hydrogen just to convert it back into electricity in a car fuel cell. Why not just use electric cars?

Where I am going with this? The Bloombox has the same requirements. It needs a fuel source in order to create electricity. This is not some box you put in your basement and it magically produces electricity. In the form described in this article, you would have to hook it up to a natural gas line, like your furnace. The Bloombox would be for electricity what your furnace is for heat. So what is all the hype about? Early estimates indicate the Bloombox can deliver electricity 50% more efficiently than it can be generated and delivered through traditional natgas power plants and wires. If true, this would be very good for the environment. Anytime we can produce electricity more efficiently we should. Some large companies such as Google have been testing out the Bloombox over the last year and claim to have saved up to $100,000 on energy costs. That might sound like a big number, but Google’s energy needs are astronomical so it likely represents a fraction of a tenth of a percent of their total bill for any one data center.

What about this talk about getting “off the grid” with the Bloombox? If you had one in your basement running off of natgas, you would be most likely trading one grid for another, the electricity grid for the gas grid. If you produced your own natural gas somehow, then you would be off the grid. I am unsure what other hydrocarbon fuel could be used in the Bloombox, but it is likely flexible enough to use other gases like methane. However, natgas is the most readily available gas for most of us.

What about the cost? The initial model runs about $800,000. Two of these refrigerator-sized units could run a typical American home (according to the article). Thus the price is waaaaaay out of the range of mass market adoption. If bought a couple for my house it would take at least 1,000 years to recoup the cost in energy savings, but that would depend on the price of natural gas of course.

What about other issues? Given that the Bloombox has been tested with some well known large companies I would tend to think it is fairly reliable and will not physically/chemically breakdown over the course of a couple years, but what about 10 or 20 years. Also, what about the waste? I am unsure what becomes of the carbon that is left over after the Bloombox reaction that produces electricity. If it is just carbon dioxide then it can be easily and safely emitted back into the atmosphere.

So the Bloombox looks like a nice improvement in fuel cell technology from an efficiency standpoint, which is great, however, I don’t see it as “revolutionary” as might be portrayed in some media outlets later this week.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy