As a follow-up to the Rhinelander Flood I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry, here are a couple of pictures taken by Brad Conklin while he was fishing on a Vilas county lake last Friday night (June 25th). The first pictures shows some ominous looking clouds and the second picture shows what appears to be a funnel cloud and could have been a tornado if it actually touched down (can’t tell for sure by the photograph). I asked the fellow who took the picture if he could see rotation when the picture was taken and he said it did look like the clouds were rotating and that smaller clouds were being sucked-up toward the eventual funnel. Later, Brad said that it rained like he had never seen before, creating rivers of water through the campsite. Once again, I am disappointed I was out of town and did not see the storm on radar, or in person. It sounds like one of the heaviest rain events in the northwoods in several years. The last time I heard of more than 5 inches of rain in one storm was in Price county in 2007 (might have been 2008) and also in Florence county in the mid 1990s (96 or 97 I think).

One would imagine that with such heavy rain, the Drought Monitor issued Thursday would show a much decreased severity of drought in northeast Wisconsin but that is not necessarily the case. Remember that the Rhinelander airport only showed 0.84 inches of precitpitation. The Drought Monitor most likely only incorporates precipitation from major reporting sites like the airport, so the “several inches” might be relatively un-accounted for in the drought calculation.

Lastly, a little late, but here is a picture of me playing basketball at the Gus Macker basketball tournament a couple weeks ago. Newsline 9 finished 3rd in the media division. I like the picture because it makes me look more athletic and like more of a basketball pro than I really am, lol. One nice thing about the Macker this year is that the weather turned out great. No rain, and the  temperatures were in the 70s. There was a bit of a breeze on Saturday but not enough to affect shooting too much.

Have a nice Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Flooding, Records, Severe Weather, Viewer pictures

Over my 3-day weekend I took the opportunity to go fishing and visit some family in western Wisconsin. The fish were biting and the weather cooperated. The weather was dry during the day and then rained at night. I was extremely happy about the rain in June because that meant the streams all had adequate water, in fact, there were a few streams that we too full for me to fish. General speaking, any streams that had headwaters in Sawyer county we too high to fish on Friday and Saturday. Not only did the streams have a good amount of water, the country-side was green and lush. Travelling through the Wisconsin farmland was sublime. I should’ve have taken some pictures to remind me in the future of how it is supposed to look in June – green, not brown.

The rainy June weather pattern has been quite beneficial, but it has been a little much in some spots. Over the weekend, parts of southern Minnesota had to deal with flooding and we also apparently had some heavy rain in our area. I heard two reports of several inches of rain Friday night into Saturday morning in Rhinelander. One fellow emailed a report of 8.15 inches!! He said that the rain ended up submerging 2 of their boats. The other report mentioned 6 to 7 inches of rain and some roads washed out near the Hodag festival grounds. The airport in Rhinelander only had 0.84 inches. I was just wondering if there was anyone else who experienced the heavy rain in Rhinelander on Friday night? If so, feel free to leave a comment here in the blog or email StormTrak9 at weather@waow.com

Alternative Energy:

The Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has focused more attention on alternative energy (see how this spill compares to other oil-based disasters). I hope it also gets people thinking about the challenges of adopting “cleaner energy”. Politicians like to say “we are going to stop using oil and have a cleaner future” as if just waving a hand will make things all better. Remember what professor Hirsch said in my blog entry “Hirsch Interview“. He has tried to estimate the value of the amount of equipment/vehicles in the world that run on liquid fossil fuels and has come up with a figure of $50 to 100 trillion. That is a lot of critical equipment that would need to be replaced if we are going to switch to newer fuels. It won’t, it can’t happen overnight. It will take a few more years of dedicated research, investment, and early adoption. I have been toying with the idea of getting solar panels for my house but get squeamish about the cost. A lot of the cost (often over half) comes from installation and additional electronic equipment (inverters and batteries). A couple good articles covering some of the issues – the promise and problems – of solar power recently appeared in technology review. They are a good read if you are interested in the subject.

Germany adopts solar power, but at what cost? Can others duplicate their success?

China leads the world in low cost silicon-based solar. Can they produce “parity panels”?

In the world of plastic photovoltaics (stuff used for lower power applications) a new manufacturing process has been developed by the University of Michigan that could make them much cheaper.

Lastly, every blog needs some random eye-candy from time-to-time, so here is a neat picture of the recent space shuttle launch – as taken from a jet fighter. 

Have a nice Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Environment, Flooding, Space