Some wild storms moved through the area last night, producing torrential downpours, high wind, and frequent lightning. The wind and lightning caused many power outages, some of which were still being fixed at the time of this writing. Hardest hit was Stevens Point. Trees and power lines down were blocking many roadways early this morning and many businesses were running on emergency back-up power. There was so much damage that the mayor of Stevens Point implored people to stay off the roads until 5am.

With such high humidity, heavy rain was always a possibility this week. It rained enough in Wausau to set a new record. The old record for July 19th was 1.54 inches. Last night, the downtown airport recorded 1.57 inches. This recent rainfall puts us above normal for the month of July and keeps us safely above normal for the year. At this juncture the precipitation total for the year in Wausau is 2.30 inches above normal. I realize some folks have probably gotten TOO much rain, but I am still happy to see above normal precipitation because prior to 2010, we had gone 7 years in a row with below normal precipitation.

Bruce, our weather watcher in Polonia, had a whopping 3.50 inches of rain. Marianne in Scandinavia ended up with 3.25 inches. Some of the other high rain totals around Northcentral Wisconsin included 3.88″ in Stratford and 4.56 inches in Lublin. Lastly, here are a couple pictures of the dramatic shelf cloud at the leading edge of the thunderstorms that moved through the area last night.

Picture from Brittany & Shawn in Spencer

From Wes Jannusch of Stratford

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Flooding, Records, Severe Weather, Viewer pictures