Before going into a discussion about heat, drought, and ice, I wanted to first highlight once again how the StormTrack9 weather blog is a place for insight and information long before it reaches a wider audience. Late last year I recapped the status of Peak Oil theory. In the blog entry I linked to the latest night-time image of the earth – a cool zoom-able image. I noted what looked like a new huge city in western North Dakota. I mentioned that it was not a city but the sign of all the oil and gas production occurring in the Bakken shale. If you were reading the weather blog, you were a month and a half ahead of Newscientist writers.  Keep reading the weather blog. Stay ahead of the crowd.

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Drought Monitor For Wisconsin

Heat and drought were big stories last year and unfortunately one of the stories continues. Mass media might have forgotten about how dry some parts of the country remain, but I haven’t. Here at StormTrack9 we keep a close eye on the Drought Monitor. If my eyes are not deceiving me, then we still have a problem in much of the country.  Yes, there have been some bouts of significant precipitation in drought-stricken areas, but not enough to budge the “drought” needle across the mid section of the country or in the southeast. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor still indicates extreme to exceptional drought in many areas. The biggest improvement since last Summer has occurred in parts of the Ohio valley in big food-growing states such as Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio.  As I have mentioned before, if we have another widespread drought this growing season, you will probably be blown away by apocalyptic media coverage, even though historically, we have had multi-year droughts and even multi-decade droughts many times on this continent through the centuries.

Here in Wisconsin, the drought situation has not changed too much in the last month or two, which is a bit surprising. We had above normal precipitation (in Wausau) in December and now again in January (check Tony’s January recap). This should start to show up in the Drought Monitor. One thing about the heavier snow that makes me happy is that we will have some Spring melt-off that should help lake and river levels somewhat. Deeper snow usually means a good start to the growing season too, based on my experience.

Ice cover in the Great Lakes

The other half of the big weather story last year – the heat - might be gone but its effects are still being felt. Take a look at the ice coverage map of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. Even though we have had some fairly extreme cold over the last couple of weeks, the ice cover is not too extensive. Fast (solid) ice can only be found in the bays. The heat from last Summer produced lake temperatures well above normal and that heat is slow to leave. With some colder weather now in the forecast for the next few days, I suspect we will have more ice floating around on the Great Lakes but most likely remaining below normal for the season. I think we saw some of the heat effects on the smaller lakes around here in NorthCentral Wisconsin as well. Even after we had enough ice on the lakes to put fishing shacks out, the ice was not firm enough to hold up during a couple of the mild spells. A handful of shacks fell through. I don’t think I can recall as many instances of vehicles and shacks falling through the ice as this year. During most years, once the ice is thick enough to drive on, it is good for the rest of the Winter. This was not the case this year.

Have a nice Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Drought, Freeze, Heat, Weather NEws, Winter Weather

Colder weather is putting thicker ice on the area lakes allowing ice fishermen to enjoy a little safer conditions and this will continue for the next week or so (the ice build-up) as daytime high temps will stay below freezing. We will probably not have temps above freezing again until we have a “January thaw”. The only lakes that are lacking much ice are the Great Lakes. The latest ice analysis (for Lake Superior and Michigan) shows only a little bit clinging to some of the bays and islands as well as some frozen conditions on the north shore of Lake Superior around Thunder Bay.

Ice Conditions on the Great Lakes

Considering how warm it has been for most of this December and how far above normal the temps were in the lake (Superior) for most of this year, I am surprised there is much ice at all. I think it was one year around 1998 (El Nino Winter) or perhaps 2000 when there was hardly any ice that formed in the Duluth/Superior Harbor. That probably will not happen this year, but if we continue to have warmer than normal temps, it will change the Great Lakes ecosystem. Besides ice conditions changing, there is also a lot of man-made stress in the form of pollution that is affecting the Great Lakes. According to this recent tabulation, lakes Michigan, Ontario, and Erie are under the most threat. Considering that the Great Lakes are one of the largest stores of surface fresh water in the world, we should make sure to take care of them into the future. As I mentioned in the past, if we begin moving away from our internal combustion engine, auto-centered, “build-build-build”, “consume-consume-consume” society, it would make the job a lot easier.

Happy Holidays everyone! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Ecology

Just yesterday during my look at the final numbers of 2010, I brought up the topic of how we haven’t had a record low temperature during the winter months (Dec-Jan-Feb) since 1996. Highlighting this fact reminded me of how cold it was back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The records from this time period are so extreme that it is not surprising we haven’t had too many record lows in recent years. The northern hemisphere was just thawing out from the Little Ice Age during that time period so it helps explain some of the trend. When you grandparents and great-grandparents talked about how cold and snowy it was “back in the day” it wasn’t all bluster. There wasn’t record-setting cold and snow every winter – there were mild spells as well – but there were more cold spells than mild spells.

Looking at the records for early January reminded me of this fact because 1912 was one of those years with a wave of extremely cold weather. During early January of 1912 there was a ten day stretch of weather that set many new records, 9 of which still stand today. On two days there were records lows, those being -35 on the 6th of January, and -32 on the 7th. There were also 7 different days with record cold high temps (7 records that still stand today). Those were:

• -2 on the 3rd
• -12, on the 5th
• -15 on the 6th
• -14 on the 7th
• -6 on the 10th
• -3 on the 11th
• -9 on the 12th

I don’t have the high and low data for each day, but I would guess that the temperature did not go above zero for all 10 days.

Here is a short wikipedia article on the cold weather around that time.

Not Much Ice Yet This Year

Here is another article from TheStar.com recounting some of the other interesting effects the cold weather  had on people and society. In the article picture you can see that Lake Ontario was frozen over. That is a far cry from this year when Lake Ontario (and the other Great Lakes) is mostly ice-free. Unless La Nina keeps temps quite a bit below normal all the way through February, this will be another year where my dreams of walking across Lake Superior are dashed.

Back to 1912, I am amazed at how well people seemed to have braved the bitter cold back then. I can’t imagine how much wood was burned keeping all the Wisconsin farm houses warm. Nowadays people generally start griping when the temperature drops below freezing and don’t stop complaining until April. Ok, maybe that is an exaggeration. There are quite a few people who still enjoy cold, snow, and winter activities.

You will get your chance to revel in cold weather for the next few days. High temps will remain about 5 to 10 degrees below normal until the weekend. Late next week it still looks like a chance of arctic air entering the region, perhaps making it hard for the thermometer to climb above zero for a day or two.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Records, Winter Weather

Two nights ago when we had winds top over 40 mph in Central Wisconsin, the winds gusted near 60 mph across Green Bay and Door County.  The high winds were actually strong enough to break off a huge section of ice in Green Bay and send it into Lake Michigan.  Totally awesome for us…Visible Satellite from the N.W.S. was able to capture this event…

Click on this linkfor a looping image of the ice.

Also for much more information check out the CIMSS Satellite Blog.

Hurricane Forecast Changes…

The National Hurricane Center is looking into changing a few things with their Hurricane forecasting procedures.  One of the biggest changes would be adding a specific “Storm Surge Warning” on top of the general Hurricane Warning.  Storm surge is referred to as the surge of water that accompanies Tropical Systems before and during landfall.  When it comes to Hurricanes, the storm surge often causes the most danger and destruction.  The storm surge is what brought the water over the Levees in New Orleans and leveled Biloxi.  More recently the storm surge with Hurricane Ike flooded Galveston last summer.  The new warning would specify a much smaller area that will likely be affected by the dangerous storm surge.  The strongest storm surge usually exists to the right of the storm’s eye.

For more on the other changes…check out Dr. Jeff Master’s Blog.

Meteorologist Brian Niznansky

Posted under Storms, Tropics, Winter Weather

In order to guage how cold it has been this winter it is useful to monitor the amount of ice on the Great Lakes. It is quite rare for the Great Lakes to freeze completely over. The last time all the lakes forze over was in 1996. There was also one year earlier in this decade when Lake Superior froze over. This year it is getting close. You can keep tabs on the situation by checking this website. Just click on one of the lakes and it will bring up a depiction of the current “state of the ice”. Here is the most recent analysis of Lakes Michigan and Superior:

Ice cover as of Feb 3

The grey areas are called “fast ice” or solid ice. You could go ice fishing in those areas an not worry too much. You could probably walk on the red areas as well, but it wouldn’t be advised. As you can see, there isn’t much open water left on Lake Superior. That being said, I don’t think it will completely freeze over. We will experience a mild trend over the next 6 days and then some colder weather during mid to late February, but right now it doesn’t look like real bitter cold arctic air. Unless we have 4 or 5 nights in a row with below zero temps, I think the big lake will stay open…barely. It is a dream of mine to one day walk across a frozen Lake Superior, say from Copper Harbor Michigan to Thunder Bay Canada – maybe stopping at Isle Royale along the way. It would be cool to camp out in the middle of the Lake. If the AGW theorists are correct and devastating warming of the planet is on the way, then I doubt I will ever be able to live out that dream. Given some of the AGW rhetoric, it is surprising to find so much ice on the Great Lakes right now!

Perhpas La Nina has helped the cold weather pattern and ice formation along this winter. The latest La Nina discussion has been released and indicates the pattern will likely continue for the next couple of months. Does this mean a cool trend for our area? Like last year? It is not guaranteed. A more likely outcome is heavier precipitation in the Ohio Valley. It would be nice if a couple of those storms moved a little farther north as we are still experiencing a drought in much of Wisconsin. New from the CPC, they will now issue El Nino and La Nina watches and advisories.

No big storms are headed our way for the next few days. The main thing you will notice is warmer temps. High temps should be in the 30s from today all the way through Wednesday of next week. There is a slight chance of drizzle or freezing drizzle late tonight and then a chance of rain and freezing rain late Monday into Tuesday. Precipitation amounts early next week coule be a tenth or two. Cooler weather with high temps in the 20s will develop late next week.

Back to dreams. I also dream of becoming a space traveler at some point in the future. Travelling to the moon or Mars would be awesome. While many people are planning for this eventuality, it seems we are at least a couple decades from even coming close to long duration space flights. If some people have their way, humans might never be able to physically visit Mars. A researcher from the NASA Ames Research center says we need greater protections for Martian life (if there is any). The worry is that microbes from earth will contaminate microbes on Mars. Bacteria from earth have most likely already made the trip to Mars on spaceships but who knows if they were able to take root. One thing is for sure, if humans travel to Mars, it is certain Martian microbes (if they exist) will be affected. No brainer here. The only way to completely protect Martian life is to put the planet off limits. That would be depressing. Humans have always been explorers and not allowing exploration throughout the solar system (and even the galaxy) would be a blow to the human spirit.

How about a nice viewer picture of some ice forzen over the bluffs near La Crosse? Even though it has been a very cold winter, there is some beauty to be found. This picture was taken by Gene Ellis of City Point. Gene also took the picture of the strange frozen foam structures. He didn’t say where they were, just that some sort-of water pumping action created them: The last picture was sent in by Denise Larson of Wisconsin Rapids. She titled the photo “Fire and Ice”: Have a nice Firday and a good weekend. Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Space, Winter Weather