The forecast is looking pretty boring over the next week or so.  Those of you waiting for the first BIG snowstorm may be waiting still for a while.  The good news for the ski lovers…even though their isn’t much snow in the forecast, temperatures are going to cooperate for area ski resorts to make snow.  Typically they need a consistent temperature in the 20′s or below to make snow.  In fact they’re making snow up there tonight!

Check it Dude!!!!

There is a chance of seeing a little bit of snow on Saturday.  Now this doesn’t appear to be a monster storm by any means, but I can’t rule out an inch or two.

I also wanted to thank everyone again for all of your well wishes you have given me through this blog, facebook, twitter, email, mail, voicemail, you name it!  You sure know how to make someone feel good.  I can’t thank you enough.  This career change and move was such a tough decision.  

It looks like my last day on air will be December 10th.  I will be starting to train Tony on some of the new tools later this week.  It’s pretty nice training someone who knows almost everything in the office already!!!

Meteorologist Brian Niznansky

Posted under Uncategorized

The day has finally arrived! This morning on Wake-Up Wisconsin we held the random drawing to determine who would win the top prizes in the First Snowfall Contest. We had five finalists (or should I say “super forecasters”) who correctly predicted last Wednesday the 24th of November as the date of the first inch of snowfall in Wausau. Here are the results of the drawing:

• 1st Place: Maynard Witkowski – Wittenberg. Prize: a $50 R-store gift card and one year’s worth of free car washes at the R-store.
• 2nd Place: Trisha Carley – Nekoosa. Prize: $150 R-store gift card.
• 3rd Place: Christine Schmude – Arpin. Prize: $100 R-store gift card.
• 4th Place: Cliff Michalek – Marshfield. Prize: $50 R-store gift card.
• Consolation: Beth Cutts – Wild Rose. Prize: Free car wash coupon (plus, of course, bragging rights amongst your friends)

Thanks to everyone who entered. Congratulations to the winners! Also, special thanks to the R-stores of northcentral Wisconsin for providing the wonderful prizes.

On the topic of snowfall, unfortunately for snow-lovers, the rain last night melted the 1 inch of snow that we had last Wednesday. It doesn’t look like we will have much more snow for the rest of the week either. With a few snow showers developing later this afternoon and continuing tonight and tomorrow, it might be just enough to turn the landscape a little white once again. A better chance (only 30% at this point) of accumulating snow will come over the weekend. A storm will be tracking across the mid-section of the nation and could track close enough to our area to bring a couple inches of snow. We will continue to watch this storm and refine the snowfall forecast over the next couple of days. If the storm tracks further south, then we might miss out once again.

Have a happy Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under First Snowfall 2010, forecast, Winter Weather

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend and enjoyed the time with family and friends.  The festive season is upon us but it looks like no real snow makers are in the near future.  I don’t know about you but if it is going to be cold I just want it to snow… or not be cold!

I forgot to mention this weekend that you can check out my continuation to my outdoor reports by seeing just what a hodag is and why it represents one Northwoods community.   It is a funny and cute story.  We had alot of fun with the history of the creature. 

Lastly since hurricane season ends tomorrow I thought I would just touch on what kind of a year we saw….

Overall we saw the busiest Atlantic hurricanes on record, where as the North Pacific cause the fewest storms on record since the “satellite era” began. 

The Atlantic had a total of 19 named storms which ties with 1887 ( so surprised by this!!) and 1995 for third highest on record.  12 became hurricanes which ties 1969 for the second most hurricanes in a season.  Out of those hurricanes 5 reached hurricane status of Cat 3 or more which is a major hurricane.  These numbers were in the range of what was originally predicted. 

As stated at the beginning of the year the high Atlantic count was due to favorable climate factors: warm waters, favorable winds of Africa and weak wind shear from the newly formed La Nina. 

Luckily what was in the US favor was the small scale factors.  The jet stream’s position contributed to warm and dry weather across the eastern US which pushed most of the storms out to sea.  There was a common trend of storms running parallel the Untied States and eventual curving back out to sea.

For more information and the write up from NOAA click here!

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Tropics, Weather NEws, Weather Safety, Winter Weather

I wanted to list the names of the 5 people who correctly predicted the winning date of the first snowfall contest, but there has been some trouble getting the list because of  the holidays. The online registration system requires someone to request data about the contest, such as who entered Wednesday, November 24th. Of the 5 super winning forecasters, only one sent in their predictionby snail mail and that was Maynard Witkowski of Wittenberg. I should have the rest of the names either later today or tomorrow so we should have the drawing soon. I will keep you up to date.

It might turn out to be quite fortunate that the first inch of snowfall occurred on the 24th, because not much snow has been in the forecast for the last few days and there doesn’t seem to be a threat of more than an inch of snow in Wausau again until Saturday. Most dates in December only had a couple of people predicting the first snowfall of one inch. If we continue the contest into future years, picking dates in December might make more sense, that is if anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory is substantially correct and we end up with a warmer world (and warmer winters here in Wisconsin). With respect to AGW, one aspect that is under-reported is haggling over the temperature record. The reconstruction of long term temperature trends (before humans started scientifically recording weather data) has often been criticized as imprecise or not robust. There was a small media furor recently when it was found out (or suspected) that a major climate study based temperature re-construction on tree rings from only three trees. There has also been much haggling over more recent temperature records. Anthony Watt has spent a few years analyzing where automated temperature sensors are placed. Here is a relatively recent blog post about that topic.

Site placement is but one wrinkle in getting high quality temperature records. There is also the issue of how instruments and methods of taking temperature have changed through the years. Here is an article about how ocean water temperature recording has changed and how this might affect the “official record”. You might also recall how land based temperature records showed some recent warming but satellites measured a cooling trend in the free atmosphere (above the boundary layer)

And you thought taking the temperature of the planet was the easiest part of climate science! It turns out that constructing an accurate record requires a good dose of historical and statistical knowledge.

Have a fun Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, First Snowfall 2010

We finally made it above normal today! Highs around the area were mainly in the low 40′s which is almost a heatwave since the last 5 days we have stayed at or below normal.  This week we are going to see a little bit of everything including rain, snow, warm and cold. 

With the storm that will move in tomorrow there are a few changes in place.  The timing has slowed which means the bulk of the rain should not arrive till dinner time.  This is good since we should see freezing rain first, at least for most of us.  I will still say it is possible in the Northwoods but I think by the time the rain arrives temps will be above the freezing threshold.  I believe when the bulk arrives, late evening into the early overnight,  we will see mainly rain.  The cold air shouldn’t push in until the overnight and we will see the transition from rain to snow.  The cold air will move in from the west so the changeover should happen from west to east in the overnight or early morning hours on Tuesday.   This should keep accumulations on the light said, right now I would say around an inch to 3 inches in the far north.  If we do see slick roadways I think it will be for the morning commute more than the evening commute on Monday. 

I was looking through these facts from the NWS Duluth office, some of them are pretty interesting.  For example, they saw the most consecutive days of snowfall in 17 years!  They had at least a trace everyday from Nov 13th to Nov 27th.  The last time this happened was Dec 17th 1993 to Jan 17th 1994. 

If you are hoping for more snow, and I know alot of folks are, we will see a few scattered snow showers on Tuesday and another possibly storm system by next weekend.  The bad news, none seem to bring any real dumping to the area, minor accumulations seem to be the best bet. 

Have a great week! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Weather History, Weather NEws, Winter Weather

For some reason I am having a hard time thinking of something to blog about tonight….nothing major is happening weather wise and it is very calm and pleasant here.  I guess we could talk about the bitter cold we have seen recently.  Normal temps are in the mid 30′s but we have barely made it to the mid 20′s.  The good news was today we finally saw the winds die down so we didn’t have to deal with the wind chills like we saw yesterday and the day before.  So even though winter is here, the temps we are seeing are more like late December or January.  If you look below you can see that highs in the 20′s are more common in heart of winter.  I went back to Nov of 2009 and the coldest we saw the entire month was 36 on Nov 27th, so one year ago today.  I counted how many times we have been at or below that number in 2010…9!!! So overall this month will likely go down as below average what could mess that up a little is the fact we saw 6 days above 55 during the beginning of the month.  But if are thinking these cold temps are a little unusual you would be correct. 

The good news is tomorrow we are going to see temps warm back into the upper 30′s!  The bad news is we are going to see another storm move in on Monday.  Just like the one on Wednesday and the one on Monday, we will see the possibility of seeing a mix of rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow!  I think the bulk of this storm is going to miss us to the south but even so we could be talking about slick roads for Monday night or Tuesday morning.  If you are sticking around for an extra day off on Monday you may want to pay attention to the forecast and get out before/after we see the change over from freezing rain to snow.  Here is a look at Monday night.

You can see the darker greens which indicate heavier rain stay from Madison to Texas.  It is still likely we will see some precip from Monday afternoon through Tuesday.  This picture is Monday evening and you can see the magical 540 line ( or freezing line )which indicates the difference between rain and snow is splitting the Badger state in two!    So it looks like we could be in for another messy night with icy roads.  Don’t forget on our website we have everything you need to keep you safe this winter!  Head to our Winter Resource Center for all the details including road conditions.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! Get outside and enjoy tomorrow, looks like the nicest day in the seven day forecast!

Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under forecast, Records, Weather History, Winter Weather

We have been so busy talking about the winter weather I don’t think we have mentioned the tornadoes this week! 

We saw rare tornadoes in the southern part of the Badger state on Monday.  You may remember we were seeing a mix across our area with mainly rain during the daytime.  To our south, two tornadoes, both EF 1 rated, hit near the Milwaukee area.  This occurred in afternoon- one around 3:30 pm and one at 4:00 pm.  The path of the one just after 3:30 pm was 4 miles in length and the one a half hour later was just over 11 miles.  Damage was seen along the paths, including trees knocked down, roofs blown off and signs torn apart.  For the entire write up you can click on this link.   Here is a pic of the damage :

These rare November tornadoes now make the total count in Wisconsin at 46.  This is the second most tornadoes ever recorded in the state of Wisconsin.  The most tornadoes occurred only 5 years ago in 2005, when we saw 62!  Based on data from 1971 -2000 on average Wisconsin sees 21 tornadoes.  So we saw double  the normal amount this year, the year with the most saw almost triple the average. 

Have a great holiday weekend. Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Severe Weather, Weather NEws

If I was out Black Friday shopping today I would be looking for the 50% off deal on electric vehicles. What?! No dealerships in the area. Sadly, the Wisconsin market will likely be one of the last to see a wide selection of plug-in cars. If you want to buy one you will have to look a little farther…or wait. Besides limited distribution markets, most electric vehicles have run into production delays. Don’t worry, if you are hoping to spread your silent (because EVs are quieter than gas-guzzlers) green wings in the near future, things are still looking pretty good for the EV market.

One of the under-reported stumbling blocks for EV adoption is charging capability. Plugging the car into a regular household socket will work, but it is not optimal. If you want fast charging capability at your house you have to get a special electric outlet set-up and even then, your utility might grumble a bit. Another solution is for charging stations or battery swap stations to be set-up around the city, just like gas stations. Project Better Place is testing the battery swap idea in a few spots and a couple cities in the country are doling out some money for thousands of charging stations. The two that have announced big plans thus far are Detroit and Houston. Houston could use a large fleet of EVs to reduce its infamous worst-air-pollution-in-the-nation status. Detroit had better spend some dough on EVs, considering the billions and billions of dollars in bailout money that landed in their lap.

By the way, the Ford Focus electric version is expected to arrive in late 2011. It is estimated to have a 100 mile per charge range. The Nissan leaf has already arrived and tests indicate its range is about 73 miles. Nissan was hoping for 100 miles but real world driving tests put more load on the batteries and reduce the range. 73 miles is pretty good, but it is not enough to get me home (the Chippewa Valley) or to a Packer game (Green Bay) on one charge. Both places are about 90 miles away.

A reminder: tune in to Wake-Up Wisconsin on Monday and Tuesday of next week to find out who will receive the big R-store prizes for predicting the winning date of the First Snowfall Contest (we had 1.5 inches of snow on Wednesday).

Have a fun black Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology

Today is the day for giving thanks and the first thing I want give thanks for is freedom – the concept that we own ourselves and the fruits of our labor – that we have natural innate rights. Thanksgiving is the perfect day to recall why individual liberty and property rights are so important – because that is the REAL story of Thanksgiving.

Since this is the weather blog and I often write about technology and its relation to anthropogenic global warming (AGW), I also give thanks that environmental Armageddon has not occurred as forecast. From the beginning 1989 through the 1990s, environmental headlines and research papers were full of dire predictions of enormous warming and biosphere destruction. THANKfully, the global temperature leveled out for the last decade or so. THANKfully, through the years, global climate models (GCMs) have been refined and will hopefully provide us with more accurate guidance through future years. I have often argued that playing to hysteria and fear (always stating the worst case scenario as the true scenario) will only produce irrational decisions on how to navigate the future. Better to assess the range of possibilities and solutions to energy use and pollution than to run scared for years to come.

With that said, here are a few AGW headlines I have seen cross the wire over the last few days:

Polar bears are threatened with extinction. Biologists think that if polar bears are unable to hunt seals, that they will have to compete with grizzly bears for food. Because of a stronger skull structure in Grizzly bears, they would likely win that fight. It is interesting to note that polar bears very recently descended from brown bears and brown bears co-exist with grizzlies so I think there is hope, even if there is less sea ice in the future.

With warmer ocean temps and warmer water temps in general (in many fresh water lakes as well), one might think sea-ice would decline a bit in the future, but that might not be the case. Large land-based ice sheets are not melting as fast as once thought and have built in self-preservation mechanisms. In addition, due to the non-linear nature of climate changes, there could be outbreaks of extreme cold in the future. Just because the headlines say the earth has a temperature, don’t think that we won’t still have cold winters here in Wisconsin.

Of course some other recent research states there will be more heat (and hurricanes, and rain), but that is not the end of the story. The threshold ocean temperature for the formation of hurricanes is rising, so perhaps there will be less hurricanes in the future. Plus, we don’t quite understand how the main circulation patterns in the ocean will be affected by AGW. Altantic ocean circulation could reverse!

Scientists are still not completely sure how the earth got into long periods of extreme glaciation (the “snowball earth”), so I suppose colder temps and more ice are a possibility for the far future as well.

In a bit of good news, after the recent election it appears that cap-n-trade legislation in the U.S. is unlikely to become law. This is good news because cap-n-trade for limiting carbon emissions is probably the worst possible way to go about it – unnecessarily complex and wide open to manipulation. If something like this is going to become law, then a straight up tax is much more efficient and transparent. I think we should be using other liberty-based incentive-type programs to limit pollution, but if politicians are going to pass some new legislation, then at least they should be going with something simple.

In other good news, humans might be off the hook for the extinction of woolly mammoths. The culprit might be – you guessed it – climate change.

Lastly, I turns out we had 1.5 inches of snow in Wausau yesterday, November 24th, and that means we have 5 winners in our first snowfall contest. The winners for the top 4 prizes (R-store gift cards and car wash coupons) will be drawn on Monday on Wake-Up Wisconsin and then revealed on Tuesday.

Have a happy Thanksgiving! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Environment, First Snowfall 2010

It has been a mess of the night.  Totals around the area have been from around a half an inch to mainly 2 inches.  Right now at 8 pm we are beginning to see a change over from snow to the wintry mix.  This will only make the road conditions worse.  We have seen SEVERAL accidents around the area.  I ran out to get gas before the worst of the storm and saw at least a half a dozen cars turned or on the curb.  One of our weather interns that came in for a quick visit said he say at least a dozen cars in the ditch off 29. 

Needless to say it has been quite a messy night and especially on one of the busiest travel days of the year, just goes to figure Mother Nature is in control!  Remember if you need travel conditions you can always go to this branch of our website.  Earlier this evening Hwy 10 was closed in Wood county because of an accident.  At 8 pm on Wednesday night NO counties are under “good conditions”.  This means that everyone needs to slow down and becareful!  The first major storm is always the hardest because we all need to get back to winter driving rules.

Don’t forget we have our “First Snowfall Contest” still going.  We did measure outside out studios over an inch and if this is confirmed by the National Weather Service then today will be the lucky day.  But as the rules stated we have to go off the official record which is done by the National Weather Service.  If you picked today then stay tuned!

Since we are talking about winter I have to admit I am already excited for skiing!! Granite Peak has been making snow and they are opening this weekend but just for the weekend.  They will be closed next week and then should stay open from mainly next weekend through the season.  I am thinking my first day on the slopes will be Dec. 7th.  If you have ever heard me talk about skiing you will know that this makes me extremely excited.  We will see another chance for snow by early next week and then possibly more by late in the week.  I think if we can get the temperature to stay below freezing and we continue this active pattern we will see plenty of snow this winter.   I have to admit what has been driving me crazy is the fact we keep seeing these storms that hover around freezing and cause the wintry mix instead of straight rain or snow!

I hope everyone has a SAFE and wonderful Thanksgiving! I will be on for the next couple days so I will see you soon.

Happy Thanksgiving! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under First Snowfall 2010, forecast, Freeze, Science, Travel, Weather NEws, Weather Safety, Winter Weather