No Runny Eggs

The Winter That Won’t Die™ is taking aim at us here in the land of cheese and beer again. Yes, we dodged a bullet overnight, when it was a bit warmer than anticipated and the moisture for the most part missed the bunker and the measuring sticks at Mitchell, but the National Weather Service is calling for at least 6 inches of snow Thursday (note; the link is highly dynamic, and the forecast is valid at the time listed at the bottom of this post), with an unspecified higher amount near the lake. The bad news; the bunker and the measuring sticks are in the traditional lake-effect belt, and we only need 11.8 inches to bust the record. The ugly; it’s going to be another wet, heavy snow.

I suppose the good news, such as it is, is I’m seeing bare spots outside the bunker. Of course, that isn’t good news for those along rivers. Further (and actual) react is banished to Page 2 for the reason of excessive vulgarities.

The view out of my living room window a few minutes ago…

(click for the full-size pic)

A couple of things to note:

– The snow’s already a good 5 inches deep
– The water tower, about a quarter-mile away, is all-but-invisible

And here I am without a working snowblower. Figures.

Well, Madison set a new seasonal snowfall record this morning, besting the 76.1 inches of snow that fell the winter of 1978-1979. Since Tom McMahon has such a good idea with 4-Block World, I’ll once again “borrow” it.

The view out a northwest-facing window about 10:30 this morning (I would have done the one out the southwest-facing living room one, but that, along with all the northeast-facing ones, have significant precip on it)…

Sorry; I blew up the wrong folder. No pic.

It’s so bad that my church, St. John’s Ev. Lutheran in Oak Creek (the one on Howell, not the one on Oakwood), has postponed its Ash Wednesday services until tomorrow (still at 4:30 pm and 6:30 pm).

10-14″ total, starting about the time of the afternoon rush, may keep the rank amateurs away from alcohol-related Fat Tuesday parties, but if you’re here, I doubt you’re a rank amateur. Therefore, if you’re in the Milwaukee area, I do believe you’ve been invited to a very special Drinking Right tonight.

On a semi-related note, I may not be a Catholic, but I don’t believe snow cream is something you have to give up for Lent. Heck, I might even try it with a chocolate twist this time around. A word to the wise; you may want to mark where you leave the collection bowl tonight and secure it; there will be a lot of snow and wind.

Conditions at Waukesha County’s Crites Field at 2:45 pm – 43 degrees, heavy drizzle, winds out of the west at 3 mph.

Conditions at Waukesha County’s Crites Field at 3:45 pm – 30 degrees, fog and mist, winds out of the northwest at 17 mph gusting to 26 mph.

If you have to drive in this, be ready for ice. I’m seeing it forming at the bunker as I type.

Since, like Wisconsin, it’s snowing in Maryland, Michelle Malkin brought out her family’s snow cream recipe. If only I had more than a dusting here, I’d try it.

(H/T – Jon Ham)

That’s right, honest-to-goodness snow fell in Baghdad today, and it’s been so long since snow fell, even 60-year-olds couldn’t remember a time that it did. No, it wasn’t sticking to the ground, but the locals that Reuters interviewed universally welcomed the snow as a sign of peace and hope. This makes the usual aches from shoveling the white stuff that fell here last night seem a little less achy.

No word from the “oh-so-compassionate” Left on whether this was Boooosh’s Fault™ or Gorebal “Warming”‘s fault. Money says they’ll blame both.

Revisions/extensions (12:50 pm 1/11/2008) – Leave it to AFP to play the Gorebal “Warming” card (H/T – Bryan/HotAir Headlines)

Yes, we had tornadoes in January for the first time since 1967. However, we’ve got quarter-sized snowflakes falling in the south suburbs of Milwaukee right now, so be careful out there.

I agree 100% with Grumps on this:

It had been present for nearly twenty four hours. The time to begin driving cautiously was long past. Stopped vehicles do not “appear in the fog.” You may feel that way because you are driving too fast to see them in time.

Slow Down. The life you save may be your own.

One more thing; turn on your lights (low-beams, please). Visibility of a self-lighted object in fog is pretty close to twice that of one that is not self-lit. It doesn’t much help with absolute-zero visibility, but that’s where the slow down rule really comes in.

Perhaps barely since I’m in the middle of a nasty chest cold that travelled up to the head and back down again (which means it will in all likelyhood be gone by 5, not-so-coincidentally 2 hours before the January Drinking Right). Yesterday’s weather was just very wicked, though the worst passed to the south into Kenosha and Racine Counties, and the big hail somehow ended up just north of me. Wisconsin, based on preliminary reports, increased its January tornado total by a factor of 5. Kathy Carpenter has some coverage the media is missing so far.

You have confirmed incoming tornadoes, very high straight-line winds, and good-sized hail.

That about explains the weather here in my corner of the land of cheese and beer. After a cold-and-snowy December, we’ve got thunderstorms and tornado warnings going on, and we’re not even a full week into January.

The current (as of 11:38 am) forecast from the NWS (which includes a winter storm watch Saturday afternoon through early Sunday morning):

Saturday: Occasional snow, mainly after noon. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 30. East wind 6 to 9 mph increasing to between 20 and 23 mph. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.

Saturday Night: Periods of rain, freezing rain and sleet before midnight, then periods of drizzle. Low around 29. Southeast wind between 20 and 24 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

If it’s December, and it’s Wisconsin,…. Of course, given this time of year, a very minor shift in the track of the incoming low can throw this way out of whack, leaving either mostly rain or even more snow.

At times like these, I’m thankful for my snowblower and all wheel drive.

Revisions/extensions (6:09 pm 11/30/2007) – Change the winter storm watch to a winter storm warning effective noon tomorrow through 6 am Sunday (expected), change the snow accumulations to 3-5 inches (good), and add in 0.1-0.3 inches of ice accumulation (ouch). Throw in the possibility of thundersnow, and if things don’t shift, it’s going to get ugly. Where’s Mike Seidel so we can give him a warm welcome like last year?

Hopefully, your driving during the first snowfall of the season will be delightful. The snow isn’t sticking yet in south suburban Milwaukee, but it’s coming down, and the wet roads are about to start freezing up (my car’s thermometer had 34 degrees). Slow down and allow yourself extra time and distance, or you might end up like the idiot that ran into Pete the other night.

Hurricane Dean made landfall as an intensifying Category 5 hurricane approximately 3:45 am at the village of Majaual, Mexico, about 175 miles south of Cancun and 45 miles northeast of Chetumal, Mexico. Just before landfall, the Hurricane Hunters measured the pressure at 906 mb (the lowest measured in this hurricane), with estimated sustained winds of 165 mph (the highest of this hurricane). The last hurricane to make landfall as a Category 5 was Andrew in 1992. Dean was the third-most intense hurricane at landfall, behind only Hurricane Gilbert (1988) and the Labor Day Hurricane (1935).

Hopefully, everybody near there evacuated to higher ground.

First things first; I’m glad that the storms missed us. As for those that are complaining about the hype; take a look at central Wisconsin this morning. These storms typically are not extremely widespread, and we in southeast Wisconsin were at the extreme east edge of the second PDS tornado watch. Dunno if we had a violent tornado in that particular watch box (there was a 50% chance of one), but we definitely had more than 2 tornadoes in central/northeast Wisconsin.

One more thing; Tim Cuprisin is both right and wrong about the drop of HD programming. Yes, the local stations don’t have the ability to put up their fancy watch/warning graphics with HD programming, and yes, the FCC does require them to broadcast the watch/warning info, but the FCC does not, repeat NOT require them to have either the constant reminder or the fancy graphics. Dunno about last night (had some cable to watch), but in the past, Channels 18 and 24 sufficed with the occassional crawl reminder, and if there were any warnings in their assigned broadcast areas, they broke in with both the crawl and the NWS radio feed. Dunno whether channel 36 (the half of the local welfare TV duo that broadcasts in HD) managed to put its simple warning graphic into the HD feed (not only do I not watch welfare TV, but their digital signal doesn’t like my location).

4/6/12/58 (and the weak-sister 41, which piggybacks onto 58’s digital signal and thus never goes into HD) have been broadcasting in HD for several years. In just over a year and a half, they won’t be broadcasting analog anymore. So, when the hell are they going to pony up for the HD version of their useless fancy-schmanzy weather graphics, or even better, dump them onto a subchannel? After all, Channel 4 (which for reasons beyond my reckoning doesn’t send out the code required to display as Channel 4/4.1 versus RF 28/28.1) carries the NBC weather channel on its subchannel. 6 and 12 don’t use their subchannels at all (though it could be because they broadcast in 720p). Even 58 has room to put weather on a second subchannel before losing the ability to broadcast in HD.

The Storm Prediction Center has issued a Particularily Dangerous Situation Tornado Watch for eastern Wisconsin (as well as the central upper peninsula of Michigan and northern Illinois) until midnight. They say there is a 90% chance of at least 2 tornadoes and a 50% chance of at least one destructive (F3 or greater) tornado.

Hold onto your hats, folks. It’s hot, humid and windy out there, and this line that’s a-coming has been dropping a lot of rotation between eastern Iowa through western Wisconsin up to the western edge of the UP.

(H/T – Jay Weber)

The broad (side note; ya think that’s the reason) that runs Stevens Point schools decided to close schools because of the threat of severe thunderstorms this afternoons. That extends the Stevens Point school year another day because she already burned through all the planned snow days.

STUPID! PATHETIC! What would she be doing in tornado alley? School year-round?

But seriously, the weather will definitely be interesting.