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

It turns out my fears of frost were a little overblown, at least in Wausau. The official low in Wausau this morning was only 36. Many locations remained in the mid to upper 30s, while a few did record frost. Stevens Point dropped to 30, Wisconsin Dells bottomed out at 31, and Wisconsin Rapids hit 32. The temperature did not drop as far as expected across more of the area because there was a light wind during the night. If the wind had become calm, then we would have been close to record low temperatures.

It turns out I could have planted a few frost-tolerant things in my garden (like broccoli and cabbage) a few days ago, but I remind myself, it is only May 17th. As long as I get my garden in before the end of May, then the growing season is long enough to produce a good crop. Back when I was growing up, a general rule of thumb was to not plant warm weather plants like tomatoes, sweet corn, and peppers until Memorial Day weekend. Nowadays, with a bit warmer climate, and improved forecasting, we can usually plant a few days earlier in May and be reasonably confident that we will not lose plants to frost.

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Turning to a subject that I touch upon quite frequently, there is more good news on the alternative energy front. Despite worries over political and economic instability around the world, technology continues to advance and promise a cleaner greener future. My current front-runner for the most promising alternative energy – solar – made news multiple times since the last update:

• Sometimes improvements come from the most unexpected corners. A research team at MIT has used viruses to help create more efficient dye-sensitized solar cells. The viruses help align carbon nanotubes in the active layer of the solar cells. Using this method they have boosted the efficiency of this type of cell by a third.
• Another group from MIT has created a solar collection material that absorbs energy in the infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths while allowing most visible light to pass through. How could this be useful? It could go over a window, thus harvesting energy but not blocking “light” from getting through for natural interior illumination. The only problem with this technology is that it is organic, which typically has a much shorter useful lifespan than inorganic solar cells.
• Another fruitful area of research is using quantum dots to improve solar conversion efficiency. One team of scientists has found that charging the quantum dots during fabrication of solar cells could improve efficiency by 50%. The process is probably a few years away e mass manufacturing.
• Just today a headline proclaimed a new solar device that converts 95% of incoming solar radiation to useful energy. The invention will apparently use nano-antennae to capture many different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. The inventor says mass production is about 5 years away. I am not holding my breath on this one, because 95% conversion might not be theoretically possible given our current understanding of physics. Details in the article were scant, which makes it look more like a fundraising effort than a coming out party for new technology.

Have a fine Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under Alternative Energy, Freeze, Technology

After a week of blogging about environmental doom-and-gloom predictions, it is about time to discuss some good news. After all, even though the economy is in a bad recession, and we are mostly stuck using dirty fossil fuels, progress is happening. This is something that is typically forgotten (at least in the recent past) by climate modellers and others predicting the future of the earth’s environment. Most people assume that progress is static or at most linear but this is not the case. If you think progress happens fast nowadays you are not alone. Ray Kurzweil has put forth a good argument that progress is exponential. New tools this year help make better tools next year. Technology builds upon itself. Some people think things are moving too fast – that new technology comes onto the scene before it is proven reasonably safe. In any case, assuming that we will still be driving cars burning gasoline in the year 2050, much less 2010, is a risky assumption. For perspective, less than 100 years ago hear in Wisconsin most farmers were plowing fields with horses.

So what is some of the good news lateely. With regard to alternative energy it seems solar power advances are coming at a steady pace, some in the lab but some out in the marketplace:

Local manufacturing icon 3M has developed a new flexible waterproof film to replace glasson solar panels. This is one of those seemingly minor advancements that adds up in the long run. The polymer film is lighter than glass and is flexible so solar panel manufacturing and shipping costs should go down a tad. Flexibility also helps keep installation costs down.

Other research has shown that layers nano-scale thin film materials can absorb up too 10 times more energy by trapping photons within the  layers for a longer period of time. This development is only “in the lab” at this time, so it might be a few years before we see it commercialized.

Even the upper limit on solar cell efficiency has been questioned by research using quantum dots to absorb sunlight. With quantum dots, the excess heat generated during the solar power process might be able to be turned into electricity.

Lastly, cheaper and better solar cells could be made by by using a new wet acid etching technique. The acid etches nano-sized pores into materials (such as silver shown in the article). These holes absorb nearly 100% of the sunlight that hits them. Almost none is reflected. If this can be commercialized for solar panels we could see a significant increase in the efficiency of solar panels.

There is a lot more, but it will have to wait until next week.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Technology