2011-2012 Winter Thread

[1992casey]

Best chance for heavy snow is north of a Minneapolis to Green Bay line. Huge swath of 12"+ totals…

 

Count me in on that. There must be a foot and a half out there.

[Menotti80]

does anybody have a good source for finding the weather outlook (detailed) for the Milwaukee area up to 1 month out?

 

I am interested in knowing if the mild weather thing will continue here through the rest of winter, or if we will get a late cold spell or big snow dump.

[BradWI]

does anybody have a good source for finding the weather outlook (detailed) for the Milwaukee area up to 1 month out?

 

I am interested in knowing if the mild weather thing will continue here through the rest of winter, or if we will get a late cold spell or big snow dump.

 

Haven't seen any free 30-day range forecasts (found a few you could pay for) but AccuWeather does 15 days:

 

http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/milwaukee-wi/53202/march-weather/351543

[RockCoCougars]

I am interested in knowing if the mild weather thing will continue here through the rest of winter, or if we will get a late cold spell or big snow dump.

 

Something's got to give. I'd be willing to bet that we will get a foot snowfall in March. In two weeks, I will be making a long drive North to visit the in-laws, it seems that nearly every time I make that trip there is some form of 'weather' regardless of the season. I've already penciled in a huge snow or ice storm for that weekend.

[owbc]

does anybody have a good source for finding the weather outlook (detailed) for the Milwaukee area up to 1 month out?

 

I am interested in knowing if the mild weather thing will continue here through the rest of winter, or if we will get a late cold spell or big snow dump.

 

It's basically impossible to predict the weather beyond 4-5 days out. From about 6-14 days it is possible to get a general idea based on the jet stream whether the pattern will be warm/cold or active/dry. For 15-30 days, there are lots of people out there who attempt to forecast that time period, but they are usually probabilistic and often inaccurate.

 

The best I can offer you is the Climate Prediction Center's 30 day outlook, which is currently forecasting a good chance of above normal temperatures for March.

 

Specifically looking at the models, there looks to be a huge warmup next week in the Midwest. Highs in the 50s will be possible again in the Milwaukee area. It looks like it will stay warm for the first 1/2 of March. Who knows beyond that.

[adamb100]

Winter is making it's weekly Friday appearance once again tomorrow.

[owbc]

Nasty storm expected this evening, be careful. Will only last a few hours but will pack a punch.

[hawing]

It's coming down pretty steadily in Madison right now. Like a shotgun full of snow.

[adamb100]

Was rain but it has transitioned to snow in Milwaukee. Coming down pretty good. Snow looks like it's heavy.

[brettac1]

It's just melting up here by Wausau.

[Menotti80]

Might use a snow blower for the first time ever

[Hammer]

Snowing like crazy here in the Oshkosh area. Very slippery!

[Baldkin]

Might use a snow blower for the first time ever

 

Be careful!

 

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/snowblower-hand-injuries-reported-in-eau-claire-area-after-winter/article_0a4763de-6416-11e1-8635-0019bb2963f4.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[fondybrewfan]

Snow looks to be about wrapped up in FDL. weather.com says we have gotten 4 inches but it looks like more than that. It also says we are suppose to get another 2-4 inches but the radar doesn't look like it will provide much more snow

[Hammer]

Ended up with around 5" here in the Omro/Oshkosh area. The wind is really starting to whip some of this crap around as well...

[Outlander]

Just posting to say how much I love this winter weather right now.

[adamb100]

Best winter ever.

[CheezWizHed]

I'm thinking this thread needs to be closed now...

[owbc]

If I close this thread it will almost guarantee that you will get snow in April.

[hawing]

If I close this thread it will almost guarantee that you will get snow in April.

Yeah, don't question The Weatherman. I did just start a spring/summer/fall weather thread, should you want to contribute there.

But we'll keep this open for the all-but-inevitable next turn in the roller coaster.

[Invader3K]

I can remember back in '98 (I think) we had a big snowstorm in April. I would rather not jinx things and go through something like that again.

[pitchleague]

If I close this thread it will almost guarantee that you will get snow in May and June.

 

 

 

fixed that for you.

[CheezWizHed]

As a kid growing up in Northern WI, Ground Hog's day confused me. He would see his shadow and the national news would proclaim, "Oh No! Six more weeks of winter!".

 

But six more weeks of winter from Feb 2nd was ALWAYS a short winter in Northern WI...

[TooLiveBrew]

owbc, can you comment any further on this winter -- Wisconsin specifically, or in broader terms as well?

 

This: Here in South Florida it has also been a warm winter. Only 2-3 cold fronts strong enough to cause sweater weather. Opposite story in eastern Europe. The jet stream has been very high amplitude the last few winters. Lots of debate over whether that is a consequence of global warming or not--specifically the huge reduction in sea ice over the arctic. It's a big experiment and there will be plenty more data soon since it's obvious that the ice isn't coming back. Ice loss is 30 years ahead of the "worst case scenario" from the 2007 IPCC report. Will be interesting to see the political reaction to the next report in 2014, sooner or later the evidence will be impossible for even the most ardent deniers to ignore

 

was startling to read. I've been aware in a general sense that the large ice sheets & glaciers are shrinking at a rapid pace, but I had no idea it was that bad .

[owbc]

I try my best to offer insightful comments on climate although it's not my area of research. I think there is a disconnect between many of the climate predictions that are talked about and the ones that actually affect the average person. There's always going to be plenty of ice in the arctic in winter and the Greenland ice sheets aren't going anywhere for thousands of years. The atmospheric warming that has occurred so far is somewhere around 1 degree C (2.5 degrees F) since the early 1900s. In an area like WI which is favored for warming it is a little more. That's not an extreme amount through--so on the average, people aren't going to notice that much.

 

One of the issues with climate change that has gotten more attention is the increase in extreme weather. It is tricky because you can not attribute any individual weather event to climate change and the weather is what people tend to notice the most. The best you can do for predicting the future is to put all the physical information that we know about the climate into various computer models and see what the result is. And unequivocally the models say that the earth is going to warm further and the warming is caused by CO2 emissions. The climate models are completely different from the numerical models that predict the weather for this week. However, you can take the future climate from the climate models and then run the weather models with those future climate conditions. In that case, they tend to output more extreme weather, partially due to a higher amplitude jet stream, with sharp changes between cold and warm, especially in the winter. The high amplitude jet stream is the reason for the extreme weather this year--warm in the US, cold in Europe. Some studies say that arctic ice and snow melt encourages that. But it's still somewhat unknown.

 

For an individual winter, there is so much else that goes into it, El Nino/La Nina, ocean currents, the position of high/low pressure centers, possibly the solar cycle, etc. So you can't even conclusively say that this warm winter is because of global warming. But when the climate scientists have been warning about this kind of stuff for decades now and the global CO2 is increasing at a record-breaking pace like it did in 2011, there is reason to be concerned. My personal view is that as a society we need to be better prepared for extreme weather regardless of global warming. It doesn't have to be a political issue. But even the Republican strategists are starting to realize that this is an issue--after "Climategate" they did some independent verifications of the data that agreed with the climatologists. And the sea ice loss is one of the best indicator because it is easy to verify with satellites--and it's been dropping significantly.