The first thing I HAVE to mention is the first snowfall contest. If you haven’t yet entered, if you have been waiting and checking the extended weather charts to get the best read on trends, you had better get a move on. The deadline is midnight tonight. Just go here and predict the date of the first “official” one inch of snow in Wausau. The average date of the first one inch snowfall in Wausau is November 14th. Last year it was a little late, not ocurring until November 24th. Many years it does not hit until December. I will let everyone know my prediction Monday. I think I am going to take a chance and predict a date outside of what is normal – just to be a little different.

Secondly, this is the time of the week to take a look at the US Drought Monitor. For us, it is a bit boring, which is a good thing! Not much changed since last week. About 65% of the state is indicated as abnormally dry. The coverage of the dry conditions decreased only by a fraction of a percent. Given that we did just get through 11 days in a row of wet weather, I suspect that next week’s Drought Monitor report will show less dry areas in the state. The best news in the country is that some rain fell in Texas this past week. It was not widespread or heavy enough to end the record drought, but any drop is welcome, I am sure.

Recent Color - Bob Whetstone, Medford

Thirdly, I want to make sure to highlight this weekend’s weather. It will be nice for the 1st weekend of October. We should have plenty of sunshine and high temps in the 50s on Saturday and in the 60s on Sunday. According to the latest Fall Color Report, the color are near the peak in the northern half of the area and close to 50% for most of the rest of the area. This means, this weekend could be the best one for a nice Fall Color trip or drive. By next weekend we could have more clouds or rain. If you don’t have time to get out there over the weekend, there will be some very nice days early next week as well.

Fourthly (if that is a word), I want to continue on the theme of progress that I started with yesterday. I often talk about gains in efficiency and all the wonderful new breakthroughs in alternative energy but not too much about things as prosaic as food production but there are exciting things going on there as well.

Read almost any environmental-themed website and you will find a lot of concern (to put it mildly) about how humans are using up all the resources of the planet, we are running out of fresh water, there isn’t enough productive land or fertilizer to feed everyone, and basically we are all going to die (like this article). I am here to say that it is not as bad as it looks and that we will like find solutions to keep everything moving forward.

First and foremost, the root of the potential problem is population increase (which ties in with my recent blog post “Housing Starts Negative“). Worse yet, the countries with the least ability to feed themselves are the ones having the most kids. What is up with that? It is all backwards. People with the least ability to feed a family should not be having multiple kids. I guess, it is what it is, and people will continue to need food, so where will it come from?

How about from the quarter acre farm? It does not take a genius or tons of work to grow a significant amount of food on a typical city lot. I make most of the small part of my yard that receives adequate sunlight. I drive around and see many large suburban lots, not only here but all over the U.S., many that are more than an acre in size, being used to grow grass. If there was a food shortage, these big lots could grow enough food for multiple families. In short, there is plenty of productive land that could be used to produce food. It seems more and more people are getting into the homegrown revolution which is a good thing.

Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle to growing more of our own food might be the government. I cannot believe a judge in Wisconsin recently explained that people “do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice”. Seriously!? This person is a judge in Wisconsin? We don’t have a right to have chickens and eat the eggs, own a cow and drink the milk, or grow a garden and eat the veggies, according to this fellow. Not without the government’s say so. And no, this is not a joke and it is not from the Onion. Grrrr. I had better stop before I blow my top.

Back to some of the good news. Even larger industrial-type agriculture has its share of innovation and each step makes it more likely that we will be able to produce more food with less energy, using less land and water that years past. Take a look at this recent development in aquaculture. A researcher in Texas has developed a new way to raise shrimp that involves a “racetrack” system of rearing the shrimp that uses less space than conventional outdoor ponds. The grow through successive stages of the equipment until they reach the bottom fully grown. Plans are being made to scale it up to factory size so we will soon find out if it lives up to its promise. Whereas not-so-environmentally-friendly outdoor ponds can produce 20,000 to 60,000 pounds of shrimp in a year, the racetrack system can produce a million pounds, using the same amount of water! If this system works at scale, then there will be much less pressure on the oceans of the world to produce seafood for humans.

Have a nice weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Drought, Ecology, Environment, Fall Color, First Snowfall 2011, Technology

I bring a lot of information to the blog about the positives and negatives revolving around AGW and alternative energy, but I try to accentuate the positives.

Recently you might have read about the Solyndra scandal and the negative outlook for the solar industry, you might have read about Peak Oil (“just around the corner” – like always), or maybe you have seen evidence of a potential world-wide economic collapse. These are certainly things to take note of but you should also keep your eye on all the progress going on in the world. For those of you with an optimistic eye, here are some recent headlines that highlight the acceleration of technological progress.

* A couple years ago I mentioned how the next entrepreneurs to become rich would be those inventing products that would produce clean energy or increase energy efficiency. In particular I mentioned that roof shingles or windows that went from white/clear to dark/opaque would be a great invention. The shingles are becoming a reality and now the windows are nearing reality as well. Korean scientists have created a window that can go from nearly clear to nearly opaque in seconds. If such a window could be made at an economically viable price, it would shave a significant percentage off of heating a cooling costs around the world.

* Another area that invention is sorely needed in is battery technology and we are getting a lot of progress here as well. Researchers at Leeds University in England have created a gel based, flexible, lithium ion battery. They claim it has the same performance as current lithium batteries. The question remains, will it cost the same or less? A cheaper long lasting battery is what is needed to make intermittent alternative energy sources like wind and solar to be successful. Storing energy needs to be cheap and a Pittsburgh company has developed a new easy to manufacture and cheap auqeous battery. Will this be the breakthrough that speeds the adoption of alternative energy? LG Chem, the South Korean company that provides batteries for some commercial EVs for sale in the market today, have developed a lithium ion battery that holds 3 times as much energy and charges faster as well.

* In the solar industry, even though the economy is not helping out much right now, innovation continues at a rapid pace. A collaboration of Universities from around the world recently developed the most efficient (6%) colloidal quantum dot solar cells ever produced. These have the potential to be cheaper because they are much easier to manufacture. Besides creating electricity, work is being done to capture more heat from the sun as well and do useful work with it. Scientists from MIT have designed (simulated) a solar heat system using carbon nanotubes and azobenzene that is potentially 10,000 times more capable of storing energy. Researchers in Illinois have recently developed 3 dimensional photonic crystals that should also help to create more efficient solar panels and LEDs. If solar panels were “blacker” and absorbed all the light that strikes them, they would be more efficient and that is where this recent material developed at Purdue University could come into play.

* Even at the smallest of scales, there is a lot of energy to be saved. Here is one such example that has been saving energy (a trillion watt-hours and counting) since 2003 – slowing down transistors. Engineers at the University of San Diego, implemented a technique to slow down transistors that are not being used in electronic devices in order to stop them from “leaking away” electricity.

* In the realm of “inventions” that are making their mark in the real world, how about zero emission housing? A couple of real functional houses were recently constructed in Chicago to prove it can be done at an affordable price.

* Being a big fan of LED lighting for its positive environmental profile, I was happy to see Taiwan finally got smart and changed all of their traffic signals to LEDs.

These stories and a bunch more that I didn’t have time for, have all popped up in the last few weeks. Yes, even during this great recession, progress continues.

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy

I can hear it now, the sound of tree and corn leaves rustling and churning and the howling through the porch railing on the house.   The first of many fall wind storms will be blowing across the region Thursday into early Friday.  It happens every year around this time. 

Cold fronts get stronger as we enter fall.  The low sun angle and long nights allow air masses to get increasingly cold in poleward locations.  The cold air masses grow in horizontal and vertical depth with accompanying higher surface air pressure within them.    The high pressure systems often get up to 1025 or 1030 mb during early autumn and sometimes in the 1040 mb ranbe by late autumn.  On the leading edge of the cold air of course is the cold front.  It is common to have low pressure areas form along the cold front.   The low pressure systems usually intensify this time of the year as they encounter the warmer air holding on in the U.S. and even over the warm waters of the Great Lakes. 

The greater the difference is between the low pressure system and the high pressure system coming in behind it, the stronger the winds will be.  We call this the pressure gradient.  You can think of pressure gradient as basically potential energy.  Much like electrical potential energy that builds up before a lightning strike between the cloud and the ground, this wind potential energy will eventually get released.  It is turned into kinetic energy as air is squeezed from the high pressure area toward the low pressure area.  If the we had no friction and the earth was not spinning, the air would travel in a straight path from the high pressure to the low pressure.  However those two factors cause a moving air particle to turn a bit to the right as it is traveling in the Northern Hemisphere.  It is just the opposite in the southern Hemisphere.

On a broader perspective, one could argue that wind such as you’ll be feeling the next few days is the result of uneven heating of the earth.  The non-uniform heating results primarily from the tilt of the earth’s axis.  It also has contribution from the different heat properties of land versus water, different soils, different vegetation, and even different colors of landscapes.   The wind is a mechanical means by which the atmosphere tries to even out such thermal differences.  By the way, the strongest wind speeds with this current event will likely occur over Lake Superior and around Door County and Lake Michigan where gusts to 55 mph are possible.

So while the blustery winds can be annoying and even somewhat dangerous in terms of bringing down tree limbs and pushing vehicles around, they do have a good side.  That seems to be the case with so many weather events.

Posted under Seasonal Items, Storms

I’ll start out with even more interesting September weather factoids for today. It might be hard to remember back to, say, September 12th, but at that point in the month we were in the middle of a significant dry spell and the high temperature was 83. In fact, high temps were in the 80s for almost 5 days in a row (one of the days was only 79). How long was the dry spell? We ended up with 12 days in a row with not a drop of rain. If you include the 4th of September and the 17th, days when there was only a trace of rain, then the dry spell was 14 days.

Fast forward a little. Including the trace on the 17th we have now had 11 days in a row with rainfall. If there is a sprinkle today and some shower activity tomorrow (likely) then our streak of wet weather would be extended to 13 days in a row. It is feeling and looking a lot more like the Pacific Northwest than Northcentral Wisconsin.

1899 Snowball Fight in Florida!

You might be a little dismayed by all the cool wet weather but just be thankful you didn’t have to endure September of 1899. During late September of that year there were several record cold temperatures set. There were record lows of 26, 21, and 18 on the 26th, 29th, and 30th respectively. The record low on the 30th is still the coldest September temperature ever recorded in Wausau. Even worse for folks back then is that there were several  records for coldest high temperature as well. The records were 42, 38, and 45 on the 28th, 29th, and 30th respectively. It was quite an extreme year in weather history as earlier, during February of 1899 we had a record low of -40 on February 10th (the coldest temperature ever recorded in Wausau). Heavy snow fell as far south as Florida that February. Later in the Fall there was a record high of 80 on October 23rd, making it the second latest 80 degree record in the books (for Wausau). The latest we have ever experienced 80 degrees in Wausau is October 27th.

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On the alternative energy scene the Solyndra scandal continues to ruminate. While there has been plenty of circumstantial evidence to indicate some sort-of shady dealings in this debacle, some people have defended the taxpayer investment by highlighting the risky nature of investing in start-up companies. Others have maintained that it is not fair that other national governments of the world provide more support for alternative energy companies and infrastructure – specifically China in the case of solar power. Most solar panels are manufactured in China because of the very cheap labor cost and government subsidies. It is very difficult to compete against that, although FirstSolar seems to be managing (with less direct subsidy). Seeing China lure battery manufacturing away from the U.S. as well with the recent Boston Power agreement, might lead people to think we are doing things wrong here in America, or that we are going to lose the “technology race”. I doubt it.

First of all, government subsidies are a dicey proposition. How many half-billion dollar loans can the government dole out (and lose it all) before there are major funding problems affecting other government services. Second of all, government bureaucrats are notoriously awful at picking and funding ”winning” technology. Thirdly, the billions wasted on failed start-ups, could have remained in taxpayer pockets where it would likely have been put to better use. Some people might have had enough money to buy some alternative energy devices for their house or maybe an electric car. Some of that money might have gone into inventing some new energy saving widget or starting a new company that survived in the market place. We will never know. What we do know is that Solyndra was selling their product (a very nice product) for half or less the cost of manufacturing. A guaranteed bankruptcy.

In China, the government is probably losing A LOT of money on all the loans and subsidies given out to solar panel manufacturers. Of course, the people cannot complain about it over there. The government says and the people do. Simple as that, except that these types of things tend to catch up with governments. By many measures, China has overspent on infrastructure in the past decade and might be due for a collapse. Also, wages are rising. So the labor part of the equation is starting to equalize with the rest of the world. What will the Chinese government do when it runs out of money? My feeling is that the more automated manufacturing plants here in the U.S. will win the day.

Whatever “winning” means.

In today’s increasingly intertwined economy, it is increasingly difficult to say who is winning and who is losing. Many people bemoan all the manufacturing that goes overseas but I don’t see too many people willing to give up their cheap products from the local box store. I don’t think many people are willing to pay double (at least!) for the price of car completely manufactured in the U.S. from material completely sourced from within the U.S.

Back to the solar issue. If Chinese laborers are satisfied with their low wage and can make a living and if the Chinese government is willing to lose tons of money subsidizing solar panel manufacturers, and they trade freely with the rest of the world, then we gain by getting cheaper solar panels. Seeing as China has the worst pollution in the world, it is probably worth it for the government to lose money supporting solar companies. Their future life and health is probably at stake more than any other country.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Pollution, Records, Technology, Weather History

One of the oddest things just happened yesterday. The official rainfall total in Wausau was 1.03 inches. What is so odd about that, you ask. Well, the official rainfall total on Sunday in Wausau was also exactly 1.03 inches. In my experience forecasting I cannot recall another time when the exact same (large) amount of rain fell on consecutive days - from different rainstorms. If I had the time, I would look way back in the weather history for Wausau to see how many times this has happened.

I did take a quick look at some records from the late 1990s and early 2000s, just as a sample, and found a couple similar instances. On both September 19th and 20th of 1997 we had 0.05 inches of rain. On both August 3rd and August 4th of 2002 we recorded 0.29 inches of rain. What is different with these instances is that the rain occurred in the late evening and early morning. It was one rainstorm split by midnight. The most striking part of the last couple of days is that we had a steady moderate rain on Sunday. It stopped. Then another steady moderate rain developed Monday afternoon and it dropped the exact same amount of rain.

I should mention that there are numerous days in the records in which a trace of precipitation fell on consecutive days. There are also quite a few when 0.01 or 0.02 inches of rain fell on consecutive days or 0.10 inches of snow fell. The lighter the precipitation, the more likely we would have consecutive days with the same amount. There is a chance of more showers today but it is unlikely we will receive another 1.03 inches (more like a tenth of two). If we did, it would be unbelievably remarkable, or even downright wierd.

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Here is a familiar story which I have covered in years past – the ecological debt. This is the thought/analysis that humans are living beyond their means – using up more resources than the planet/nature can provide. Here is this year’s annual pronouncement. From many past articles, it has been stated that humans have been running an ecological debt since 1979 (or sometime during the 1970s). This has always made me wonder how we can use more resources that nature can provide every year. Finally, this year, someone (the Global Footprint Network) has brought into the discussion the allegory of “savings” to help explain the illogical premise. Using up more resources than the earth provides every year is akin to spending more than your paycheck every two weeks. In order to keep “spending” a person has to dip in to “savings”.

Now all that is left for the Global Footprint Network (and others) to do is quantify the amount of ecological “savings” we have. Only then will we know if there is a possible collapse of human society on the near term horizon – due to lack of natural resources.

Slums In India

If the ecological debt grows and our “savings” are about to run out, what can we do? The Global Footprint Network claims that if everyone on the planet lived like people in India, then we would only use half of the resources provided by nature every year, so we would be ok. The problem is that no one wants to live like the majority of the population in India – which is sadly in squalor. Almost everyone wants to live like we do here in the U.S. People want comfort, wealth, and health. How do we get it? Just like we always have. Through innovation and hard work. As I was mentioning earlier this week, we can have progress, even as we use less energy.

In the end, I don’t subscribe to the fatalistic view that humans will use up all the resources. Not only is resource consumption a dynamic self-limiting activity, resources are as infinite as the universe and the human imagination.

Have a pleasant Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Nature

Well, I think we can officially say it has been a dreary and wet stretch of weather around here.  We have had rain reported now for 10 days consecutively in the Wausau area.  It was a fairly heavy soaking Monday. As of 6 p.m. we had picked up over .75″ of rain.  With additional rain bands moving through, it could climb over an inch before the evening is out.  Of course Sunday we had 1.03″ as well.  We had another day early in the month with over an inch of rain, and that was September 3rd.  That’s pretty unusual to have 3 days in September with such high rainfall amounts around here. 

Other rainfall reports Monday included:  Green Bay 1.4″, Scandinavia 1.6″, City Point 1.3″, Stevens Point, 1.3″, and Wisconsin Rapids 1.2″.  Below you’ll find the National Weather Service Green Bay doppler radar estimate of rainfall for the past couple of days.  Notice the orange and red color blobs over central and north central Wisconsin.  Those are the areas that have had storm totals around 2.0″ or greater since last Friday.

The storm system which has been drenching us is weakening and will slowly move east toward the eastern Great Lakes.  However it is still close enough to bring a few showers through Wednesday.  Then a cold front could provide some rain Thursday.  The additional rain totals should be much lighter in many cases than they have been.

Posted under forecast, Storms

Thanks for the comments last week on “Housing Start Are Negative“. I am glad to see other people are thinking about other measures of progress. I want to make it clear however, I generally do not support forcing people to adopt changes they do not want. I would rather lead by example and use the art of persuasion. Regular readers know that I am rather miserly with my energy use (for additional evidence, just ask my wife). I take shorter showers, eat more raw food instead of cooking, ride a bike to work during the warm season, and even use some hypermiling tips to squeeze more mpg out of my already efficient cars (by the way hypermiling does work and can save you a good amount of gas money).

I have been encouraged by seeing more people choosing energy efficiency as a way to enhance overall quality of life. More and more people are talking about it as well. Over 1.2 million engineers in England recently issued a call to action to implement a “Future Climate” project. The theme coming from the engineering organization is that engineers have the solutions to solve potential future climate problems, if “we” will let them.

I am not stopping them. Are you?

As is typical with many large organizations, this engineering group is asking for national governments to develop plans of action and FUND them (with other people’s money, of course). So basically it boils down to more regulations and taxes, so that engineers can be paid to develop positive environmental solutions. It is a method of developing future solutions but is not very desirable, in my opinion. The final quote of the article linked above is:

“Any technological revolution requires two crucial ingredients – engineers to design, develop and manufacture the technology, and politicians to help create the legislative, behavioural and societal environment that allows change to happen. Today’s engineers have fulfilled their side of the bargain. It is time for our politicians to show their mettle.”

Engineers have fulfilled at least some “part of the bargain” - of designing a better future, but that is just the beginning and is not a real sacrifice. How about the engineers lead by example and each buy an electric car? Could you imagine if just the engineers from the UK each bought an electric car – that would be 1.2 million sales – launching the EVs into the mainstream and driving down the cost through economies of scale. If each one bought solar panels to put on their homes or perhaps the deck on their apartment, they could easily make up for the slack in solar panel sales due to the great global recession. They could affect real big change in a short time frame. It would be a real sacrifice and they would be leading by example.

Relying on politicians to implement grand plans for a cleaner future is foolish – based on my experience. Not only do political solution take much longer, any plans that run through a large bureaucratic entity are extremely inefficient. Most of the money is wasted paying people to sit around in meetings.

I might not like government spending money or forcing people to adopt changes, but in China they are not to shy about that type of action. They hope to become the world leaders in installed EV charging stations in the next couple of years. They offer huge incentives for people to buy EVs. No doubt part of the urgency stems from the immense pollution problems that have developed in that country.

On the subject of EVs (and hybrids), there are certainly plenty of cool designs but the price continues to be a sticking point. Take a look at some of the newest cool designs from the Frankfurt International Auto Show.

Even gas engines have room to improve efficiency. A few car engines are now moving down to 3 cylinders. These would be nice for city driving, I am sure, but not so great for US freeways.

Cheap and efficient but not stylish

As far as making cars cheaper, one designer (Gordon Murray) has redone the car AND car manufacturing process from scratch in order to bring costs down and efficiency up. Now if he could just design something that looks nice. The picture in the article is just a little too boxy for me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind driving small cars (I think the Smart cars are cute) but they could at least be stylish. More people would buy them if they looked cool while driving them.

Have a good Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Technology

Tens of thousands of acres have already been burnt.

Since we have seen a good deal of clouds, spotty showers and cool temperatures over the past few days thanks to a stubborn upper-level low pressure system, the wildfire in Minnesota has fallen out of the headlines.

But what ever happened to it?

The Pagami Creek Wildfire burning in the arrowhead of Minnesota not far from the Ontario border quickly became the talk of the town a few weeks back.  Many people across Central Wisconsin could smell and see the haze when northwesterly winds pushed the smoke in our direction.

Despite the cool and wet weather that wildfire is still burning, and according to the Superior National Forest website is still only 45% contained.

The wildfire has been burning for well over a month.  Started by a lightning strike on August 18th, the Pagami Creek Fire has torched 93,459 acres so far.

For updated reports on the progress firefighters are making on the blaze, check out the Superior National Forest Incident Information System website for more details.

Posted under Community, Environment, Fire, Nature, Seasonal Items, Uncategorized, Weather NEws

Earlier this week I mentioned how the trip back from my fishing vacation was somewhat ruined when I heard on the radio that the Times Atlas of the World had wildly exaggerated the amount of ice that had melted off of Greenland. That wasn’t the only thing that bugged me. I also heard some financial news and once again it was trumpeting a rise in housing starts during the past month – as something positive for the “economy”. I did a little reading and found some other articles talking about the housing “problem” here in the U.S. I am flabbergasted that there are by some accounts over 10 million empty and/or for sale homes in the U.S. and we are still building a half million new ones every month!

Now why would I be upset to hear that more houses are being built – that the housing sector might be turning around? I could go through the entire argument again but it would be better if you read this past blog post. The gist of it is that we should start looking to other metrics for judging how good the “economy” is. The main theme throughout the last couple of centuries (particularly here in the U.S.) is build build build! If there is more building, traveling, shipping, flying, and consuming going on then the economy will be “good”. If we aren’t out there paving over more of nature, then the economy is “bad”. I am saying that I have had enough with sprawl. I have had enough with expansion for the economy’s sake. If we want to have a better and cleaner place to live we should start focusing on different metrics to judge the health of the “economy”. We should stop judging our economic well being on growth alone. How about focusing more on quality instead of quantity? We can still enjoy great progress without constantly building more roads, more houses, more box stores, and more parking lots.

So what would be a better metric than housing starts, or GDP, or infrastructure expansion? What about health? If the aggregate health of the population increased every year or lifespans increased every year, wouldn’t that be a sign that things are good – even if we never build another freeway? How about energy efficiency or productivity? If we get more use out of every unit of energy year over year, isn’t that progress – even if we never build another sub-division with cookie-cutter houses? Some people have even suggested happiness. If happiness could be reliably measured and it increased every year, wouldn’t that mean we have a good “economy”?

I am not sure at this time what the exact solution is but I am happy to see that someone agreed with me the last time I wrote on this subject. Thanks for the comment! I am also glad to see more websites that are pushing this issue. Many of them mix leftist politics into the discussion a little too much for my taste but here is one that I recently stumbled across – PostCarbon.org. One of the contributors to that site has written a book called “The End of Growth“. While I don’t agree that we have reached hard limits on how many resources we are able to use (a counter argument to Peak Oil here), I do subscribe to the thought of re-evaluating what is important to a society as an alternative to just building more houses to make things better. Also, to say the there will be no “growth” in the future, is not the best way to frame the issue. Growth can come in many forms and I wouldn’t want to live in a future with no progress.

Sadly, the “jobs” bill coming out of the government right now boils down to building more roads, a tried-n-true but worn out and environmentally disastrous way to put people back to work. Hopefully some dissenting voices will be heard.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Environment, Nature, Peak Oil, Pollution

For those of you excited about the first snowfall contest and want to enter, the best place to get in on the action is here: http://www.waow.com/story/15481664/2011-snow-fall-contest

Entering on our website is easy, however, if you prefer mailing in your entry you can send a letter or postcard with your prediction, name, and mailing address to:

WAOW-TV Snowfall Contest

1908 Grand Avenue

Wausau, WI 54403

You can also send an email with your prediction, name, and physical mailing address to weather@waow.com. We need your mailing address in case you win one of the top prizes.

You can also text your entry with your cell phone. Just text ”SNOWFLAKE” to 28214.

It would be best to not leave your prediction in the comment section of the blog. For those of you who have already left your prediction in the blog, don’t worry, I entered you in the contest. However, it would be best to not leave your prediction in the comment section

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And now an update on the falling UARS satellite that I mentioned a couple weeks ago in the blog. It is still falling and NASA experts say it will finally come to a fiery end on this Friday afternoon - tomorrow, September 23rd. NASA says that the U.S. is in the clear – that the debris will not fall here, but it is not an exact science. It would be neat to see it burning up in the sky, just as long as pieces do not fall on my house.

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CPC Dec-Jan-Feb Outlook

Another follow up here on the CPC monthly outlooks which Tony first mentioned a couple of days ago. The highlight of the forecast is that the CPC is forecasting a greater chance of above normal temps for our area during the month of October. It is not a guarantee that the temps will be above normal, just that there is a greater chance than being below normal. If we do end up warmer than normal, then perhaps we will have a real nice Fall color season. The other important thing to note is that the Winter forecast is still showing a greater chance of below normal temperatures, probably due to the presence of La Nina once again in the Pacific ocean. Historically, La Nina hasn’t always meant colder than normal winter-time temps with above normal snowfall, but the last three La Nina’s have been different. Each of the last three La Nina episodes was correlated with cold and snow here in Wausau. If La Nina sticks around through the entire Winter then I think we can once again expect a bit longer and harsher than normal winter. The key here is the length of La Nina. Since it has already formed, then maybe it will come to an early demise before the end of Winter. La Ninas (and El Ninos) usually last 8 months to a year, but can go longer.

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Lastly, this week’s US Drought Monitor indicates no chance in the conditions across Wisconsin. About 65% of the state is drought free. The rest is abnormally dry. The half inch to an inch of rain we saw on Sunday really helped out. In the south of the U.S. where the extreme drought is located there has been very slight improvement in drought conditions. It isn’t anything to write home about but at least it is better than going the other direction.

Have a pleasant Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under CPC Outlook, Drought, First Snowfall 2011, Space