Wild, diverse, changeable, wet, white, windy, icy, and unseasonable all describe the weather lately around here. Some would probably just call it miserable or crummy.  Regardless our viewers have been observing it in full force and taking plenty of photos to capture it in all its glory or gory detail.  I’ve put a bunch of them below that we received in the weather office Wednesday.  I hope you enjoy them even if it is not what you probably want to be seeing this time of the year!

Appleton area Wed. morning. From Dale Van Camp of Merrill.

Appleton area Wed. morning. From Dale Van Camp of Merrill.

Dove on snowy branch. From Gordon Renfert.

If you would like to submit photos to be seen on WAOW-TV or waow.com or our facebook site, please email them to weather@waow.com  Thanks a lot and be careful out there!

Lightning Tuesday night in Wisconsin Rapids. From Roger Leitner, Wis. Rapids.

Posted under Spring, Viewer pictures

The 4-December Snow Cover Chart From the National Weather Service.

This weekend’s winter storm was very interesting to watch and forecast.  The storm included a distinct line of mixed precip that essentially divided Wisconsin into two chunks. South and southeast of the line saw rain.  North and northwest of the line saw snow, and in some places quite a bit!

Also interesting with the storm is where the rain/snow line ended up staying.   For hours on end it sliced through parts of Marathon, Wood and Portage counties giving us rain, snow and sleet.  For most of the night in three separate counties that cover a relatively small geographic area, we had three different types of precipitation falling at once. 

Viewer photo of the 7" that fell in Boulder Junction, From Wendy Ross.

In the end, most of Marathon saw snow, Portage rain and Wood saw a little bit of all three.  What was also fascinating to watch is how steady the line held, with relatively little movement through the night. 

The position of the rain/snow line played a big role in where we saw the significant accumulations.  We had been forecasting to see the highest accumulations in Wausau and then in points north and northwest of the city.  It was a difficult storm to forecast accumulation for because the way things appeared, and how they eventually transpired was the boundary between the 1-3” region and 3-6”+ region cut right through Wausau and northwestern Wood County where quite a few people live!   

Once the storm had moved out, Wausau saw 2.7” of snow but nearly a half-inch of rain.  Meanwhile on the western edge of Marathon County and the eastern side of Clark County, Abbotsford picked up 5” and Owen received 5.6”.  North of Wausau we saw just less than 5” in Merrill and 6” in both Tomahawk and Medford. Winchester saw the most (as of the most recent reports) at 7”.

All in all, we lucked out that the accumulations came just about the way we had anticipated and the rain/snow line’s dance over Marathon, Wood and Portage Counties kept accumulations down for the storm total. 

But of course, this is just winter storm number two of the young season.  We’ve got a ways to go before we can start thinking about summer again! 

Can’t wait!  Thanks for sticking with us here at Storm Track 9 through the storm.

Posted under Nature, Seasonal Items, Snow Totals, Storms, Viewer pictures, Weather Safety, Winter Weather

I was quite upset this morning when I read that spectacular northern lights were out last night. It is fairly rare to see northern lights in our area, and they are hard to predict, so when they do occur I always hope to be awake and out in the night air too see them. Given that I wake up during the wee early morning hours in order arrive at work on time, I would expect to have a better chance than most to see the northern lights. But I missed them. By the time I woke up this morning, clouds were already in the area. From reports I have see and read, the lights were out from sunset onward.

What makes this episode particularly depressing is that the northern lights were spectacular. Judging by the pictures, it looks like they were the best since 1989. Anyway, the best I have seen. The northern lights last night were farther south than usual being seen all the way down to Arkansas. Check SpaceWeather for a recap of the event and pictures from many different states.

October 24 Auroras

What makes this even more galling is that even though the geomagnetic storm was not well predicted days in advance, it was noticed at 1pm yesterday afternoon by satellites orbiting the earth. A fellow in Madison (Randy Halverson) was alert to the short-term forecast of auroras (northern lights) and got these beautiful pictures. I guess I should pay a little closer attention to geomagnetic storm alerts. I used to check the forecast on a daily basis, but after the sun went into a very quiet spell during 2009 and 2010, I stopped watching because it seemed there would never be northern lights again. The good news is that the solar cycle (sunspots and flares) is more active now and it is supposed to remain active into 2012. This means there should be better than average opportunities to see the northern lights. During the winter, the viewing is often better because of the longer darker nights and the clear dry air.

If anyone happened to get pictures of the northern lights last night, feel free to send them to weather@waow.com and perhaps I can show them on the morning show later this week.

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From a glowing sky to a glowing ocean, researchers now think they have discovered what cause large patches of the ocean to glow bright blue. It is possible that plankton (dinoflagellates) are creating all of this light. They have been known to possess the capability of bio-luminescence and now scientists have (possibly) figured out how it happens through the motion of the water disturbing the flow of electrical current through the body of the plankton .

Plankton Glowing in the Ocean

But why would large areas of the ocean glow with the light of these plankton? It is likely happening during rare large blooms of this particular plankton, similar to how red tides sometimes occur. The plankton just take over an area of the ocean to the detriment of other life. They sometimes produce higher concentrations of toxic chemicals due to their over-abundance.

The glowing blue ocean had been a reported for centuries, but was not confirmed by satellite until 2005. I can’t imagine how eerie and beautiful it would be to travel through a bright blue glowing ocean at night. Don’t hold your breath for seeing this phenomena anytime soon. These blooms are probably more difficult to predict in space and time than the northern lights. It would be a rare occurrence indeed to see both at the same time!

Have a fine Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Nature, Oceans, Space, Viewer pictures

I had the opportunity to drive to southern Wisconsin (Milwaukee area) last Friday and return slowly and enjoy Wisconsin’s rustic roads on the way back north on Saturday. What amazed me was the extent of the destruction cause by the wind storm that struck this past Friday. There were trees down in many locations in Waushara and Waupaca counties, the worst of which was in Wausau county. People were out with chainsaws cleaning up the mess at about every other country house of farm. There were power lines down and even large branches and tree tops that had blow out into farm fields quite some distance from the nearest forest or grove of trees.

Picture by Gregg Michael of Neenah

It just goes to show how dangerous straight line winds can be. The storm did not look all that “impressive” on radar but we had some reports from southern Minnesota and the La Crosse area indicating some trees down and power outages. So when the storms entered our area and a handful of counties were under warnings I made sure to break into programming twice to warn people. It is not often that this – dangerous storms during the morning – happens during severe weather season. Seeing the post storm damage and reports of winds in excess of 70mph, I think it was the correct decision. I hope everyone remembers that it is not only tornadoes that cause damage and can kill people. Far more common are straight-line wind storms.

Wind Damage in Almond, taken by Lee Welter

Other than the huge storms on Friday, the weather conversation over the weekend focused primarily on a wet Saturday and cool temps Sunday and Monday. Then cool trend eventually led to some frost this morning. The low temps dropped to 32 in Eagle River and 30 in Land O’ Lakes. It was the first touch of frost of the Fall season. The last time we had a touch of frost was not too long ago – it was June 12th of this year, so we almost made it 3 months without frost! June 12th was the last time the mercury dropped down to 40 here in Wausau and that was the low we had this morning.

For the rest of the week, I will have plenty of time to blog about topics other than weather because not much will be happening. In fact, the weather looks just about perfect for the early to mid part of September. We should have more sun than clouds from today through Sunday and temps should steadily warm, reaching high in the mid to upper 70s from Thursday through Sunday. As of now, it looks like the next chance of rain will be next Monday. Of course, things could change a bit, because the weekend is a few days off, but as of now it is looking good. We just don’t get many perfect weeks or weekends here in Wisconsin throughout the year so you MUST be sure to make the most of it. Winter is not too far away.

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One of the “other” topics I have been following for a few years is the development of LED light bulbs. On the surface they offer great promise to help reduce our impact on the environment and maybe save a lot of money. Up until now, the problem is that they cost too much. A standard socket LED bulb sells from around $20 to about $50 on the internet. Yikes!

Still, progress continues. Researchers at the University of Florida have successfully used quantum dots to produce LED lighting and developed a process to make them much cheaper. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding a couple years down the road to see if the latest quantum dot LEDs can be made cheaper. Here is a longer article about all things LED from a lighting conference that took place recently. Almost all of the display booths at the conference were touting new LED lights or new designs (on paper/powerpoint). No one is talking much about incandescents or compact fluorescent bulbs. This is probably because many government have mandated or are threatening to mandate the end of incandescent bulbs (in order to save energy), and compact fluorescent bulbs are so…yesterday – I guess.

The one disturbing thing I found in the longer article was reference to how the Tea Party is against government mandates ending the incandescent bulbs. That in itself is not bad. I am very sympathetic to small government arguments and I would prefer that the government NOT mandate what light bulbs we have to use. What I am concerned about is that the limited government types (of which I would be classified) will toss the baby out with the bathwater. That disdain for light bulb mandates will turn into disdain for LED technology in general. This would be sad because LEDs do hold a lot of promise in saving energy and lessening our impact on the environment.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Freeze, Severe Weather, Technology, Viewer pictures

Viewer-submitted photo of Hurricane Irene from Mary Ussery

Even with non-stop media coverage of Hurricane Irene slamming the Eastern Seaboard this weekend it’s easy to overlook the storm’s details. 

Reports from weathercasters and journalists standing in the storm focus on getting the most important information out first and foremost.

We hear a lot about how much rain is falling and where the strongest wind gusts have been so far.  We know about the evacuations and the historic implications the storm has already had on New York City before the worst of it arrives. 

Viewer-submitted photo of Hurricane Irene from Mary Ussery

But if you’re looking for an extremely detailed breakdown of the hurricane direct from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration you’ve come to the right place. 

Click HERE to go straight to the official Hurricane Irene Quick Look page.  This will provide you with a feed of instant storm analysis from the 14 active monitoring stations along the coast being impacted by the storm. 

You can also see in graphical form the progession of wind gusts, water levels, and barometric pressure as the storm moves over each station. 

Hurricane Irene has weakend a bit but considering it’s path it doesn’t need to be a strong hurricane to do extreme damage.  No matter what the outcome this will be one storm that we study, talk about, and reference for quite some time to come. 

Posted under Hurricanes, Natural Disasters, Oceans, Severe Weather, Storms, Tropics, Viewer pictures, Weather History, Weather NEws

Tuesday’s tornado in Clark County indirectly caused the death of an elderly man in hospice care according to the Wisconsin Emergency Operations Center. 

The National Weather Service said the EF2 twister packed wind speeds between 120 and 130 miles an hour.  That caused power outages, a contributing factor to the death in Clark County. 

Two people were injured by the tornado as eight homes and barns were destroyed.  An additional 19 were damaged.  The tornado causing the damage has been rated as an EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.  The National Weather Service office in La Crosse says the tornado packed winds of 120 to 130 miles and hour.

A weaker EF0 tornado moved through rural areas of eastern Shawano County. 

The Clark County twister touched down at 5:05 PM seven miles northwest of Chili.  The tornado ripped up a path 7.2 miles long mowing over homes, farms and fields.  According to the National Weather Service the vortex was as wide as 200 yards.  Click HERE for a complete report including photos and radar images of the storms from the National Weather Service. 

The weaker EF0 tornado in Shawano County roared over mainly fields and forested areas near Briarton.  Several trees were reported being taken out by the tornado.  Click HERE for a complete report from the National Weather Service. 

The addition of three tornadoes in the last two weeks means Wisconsin has now seen 35 tornadoes in 2011.  That is well higher than the 30-year average of just 23, according to the National Weather Service records. 

In addition to the confirmed pair of tornadoes, large hail in excess of 1.75″ was spotted in Clark County and 1.25″ in Neilsville. 

For continuing coverage including a photo slideshow of images submitted by viewers, click HERE to be taken to Newsline 9′s exclusive storm coverage web page.

Posted under Natural Disasters, Records, Severe Weather, Tornadoes, Viewer pictures, Weather NEws, Weather Safety

While the weather looks warmer than normal for this week and probably the first part of the weekend (as it has been for most of this month), there is no guarantee this trend will continue into the Fall.

To give us an inkling of how things might change we turn to the latest edition of the Climate Prediction Center’s (CPC) monthly outlooks - released over the weekend. In this latest model run we see the un-exciting “EC” category over Wisconsin for September. “EC” means the computer models are predicting an equal chance of temperatures being above normal or below normal (same goes for the September precipitation).

CPC Sept. Temp Outlook

The weather could end up warm and dry or cold and wet – but we get no definitive guidance from the climate models.

For September, the one part of the country with more than equal chances of a temperature trend is in the south and southwest, including Texas. The CPC outlook is for a higher chance of above normal temps than below normal temps – just the thing Texans do not want to hear. They have already had their fill of heat (and drought) so far this year.

CPC Sep-Oct-Nov Temp Outlook

Looking a little further into the future, the three month outlook (September, October, November) indicates a greater chance of above normal temps for our part of the country, which would mean a very nice Fall period. Since the computer models are indicating EC for September alone, then that might mean the warmer weather will be concentrated in October and November, prolonging our “warm” season a bit. Keep your fingers crossed.

What about for all the winter enthusiasts? Well, there might be some good news for you as well. The CPC three month outlook for the winter (December, January, February) indicates a little better chance of below normal temps than above normal temps.

CPC Winter Temp OutlookCPC Winter Precip Outlook

The climate models also indicate a greater chance of above normal precipitation around the central Great Lakes region, including southeastern Wisconsin. Much will hinge on the El Nino/La Nina (ENSO) trend in the Pacific ocean. Right now the southcentral Pacific ocean surface temps are in a neutral range and they are expected to stay that way through the Fall. Some ENSO computer models are hinting at the formation of another, albeit weak La Nina. If La Nina forms, recent history indicates it will increase our chances of having real Wisconsin Winter weather (cold and snow).