Hope everyone remains safe..

[jazzytrav]

And it's gotten worse. The only gauge that I have is the white car in the 3rd picture, and the water keeps rising on it. At this point it's too dark to get a good picture, but the water is at about the windows.

 

And it just started raining again...

 

How are you holding up Rydogg?

[craigharmann]

Unbelievable Jazzy. So have you built your ark yet? Hope everyone in Oshkosh has enough supplies to last for a while! That is crazy!

[PKBadger]

What's the story near Milwaukee? I'm supposed to land at Mitchell around 1:30pm tomorrow....wondering if I should expect delays. Is there flooding in SE Wisconsin?

[ewizabeff]

The great thing about working on a college campus - my tornado shelter today was a movie theater. Awesome.

 

In other news...I think it's lightning more often than not.

[DuWayne Steurer]

At about 8 pm tonight my boss, another co-worker and myself were standing just outside the front door to our office (under an overhang) when a tree about 30 feet or so from the front door got completely smoked by lightning. The volume was simply intense. Speaking for myself, my ears were ringing for a good 15 minutes afterwards. Totally awesome. Wish I would have had a camera to take a picture for you guys.

[craigharmann]

Back between my sophomore and junior year of college, I had a buddy spend the night at our house, as he was on his way to work at a camp in Michigan. I slept so soundly that I didn't hear lightning hit a tree about 50 yards from where I was sleeping. Same storm had strong enough straight line winds to pick up a cow from the pasture and drop it in a hay field. The cow didn't make it.

[brewcrew00]

I saw the weather light in downtown Milwaukee get struck by lightning tonight, similar to Roco, the noise was intense, and sparks were flying everywhere. It reminded me of that scene from Ghostbusters!

[jazzytrav]

Update on the white car "guage":

 

http://images.yuku.com/image/pjpeg/ad7151998e5f50ce232aa37b315c034d83ba819.pjpg

 

If you can make it out, basically the top of the car remains. The owner of the car finally came out about an hour ago and he looked absolutely hopeless.

[PeaveyFury]

My sister in Oshkosh saw a parked car floating down their river-er, street in Oshkosh tonight.

 

Lots of heavy rain tonight in the Madison area- I was out during the tornado warnings tonight- sounds like multiple spotters confirmed a tornado on the ground in the Deerfield (near Cambridge/Lake Mills) area around 6:30 or so tonight.

[logan82]

Now that I think about it, Oshkosh is really a flat city surrounded by lakes, rivers and marsh. They have problems with water during a "regular" heavy rain. This is about the last thing Oshkosh needs.

 

I found this map just to give the out-of-staters some idea of what we are dealing with right now. It doesn't show everything, but most of it. Linked from the Wisconsin DOT website.

[burniebrewer]

The late weather on WKOW said that the rain should be ending in Madison around 3 AM. Great, only 3 1/2 more hours.

[temke]

planes are taking off and arriving FWIW.

 

my neighborhood near howell and howard was hit pretty rough. about 10 trees down. most sheared. one directly across the street pulled right from the ground. east howard right in front of my house was flooded over the median. i was attempting to clean out the storm sewer and water was up to my knees.

 

i have pics but am not ambitious enough to upload them yet.

 

we dodged bullets all day in bay view, but finally got nailed good.

 

EDIT: while waiting for some towels to dry so i can re-fortify, i uploaded a couple pics. this is the 400 block of east howard:

 

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/359/picture023zw8.jpg

 

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/1489/picture024vx9.jpg

[jazzytrav]

My girlfriends apartments (a block away from me) were evacuated a few minutes ago. Most first-floor apartment buildings are being evacuated, and some in my complex are already under water. Fire trucks and city buses all around. I managed to get her back here by me since I live in an upper apartment, but now my shoulders hurt from carrying her. I can't imagine any way that area businesses will be open tomorrow.

 

Yay three day weekend!

[fondybrewfan]

Well Fond du Lac certainly didn't escape flooding either. I never thought the Fondy River would ever go over its banks but it did last night. I had to try four different routes to get to work today.

[RyDogg66]

Finally made it home. My family got stranded (9th and Ohio) while I was on my way home from work. My dad rescued them in his F-150 and I manuevered through the flooded streets and we all stayed at my parents last night, just got home this morning at 9ish.

[PeaveyFury]

So apparently the sandbags that have been brought in by FEMA are available at a cost of $.25 per bag. Clearly, my cousin who is desperately trying to save his house right now really needed to shell out $1,500 for the sandbags that he's needed to this point.

 

Kudos to the City for realizing how bad thing are and putting an end to the cost this afternoon, regardless of what the 'policy' is.

[stoutdude04]

The downtown Beaver Dam has been evacuated. The river running through town is incredibly high. Fox Lake is thinking of opening their dam. This will raise the river considerably. We then will have to open our dam, and I fear the trend will continue down the path.

[SeriesFinale]

Jeez, looks like this will finally affect me personally: I'm taking the red-eye to Florida tonight, with a two hour pre-dawn layover in good old Milwaukee. Judging by the forecast, it could be a bumpy landing!

 

My flight ended up being delayed 2 hours out of SF because of your thunderstorms out there. As we landed though, because it was light out, I got to see all the flooding down there...an amazing thing to see from the air. I went to donate to the Red Cross right after I got home.

[jazzytrav]

Yeah, I'll hopefully be able to volunteer some time soon to help with the cleanup. Unfortunately I can't exactly get there right now because my car is totaled thanks to the flood.