Updraft: January 8, 2008 Archive

Pea Soup

Posted at 7:05 AM on January 8, 2008 by Paul Huttner

The big news in the midwest yesterday was the tornado outbreak.

But here in Minnesota today, it's the fog. Visibilities are under 1/4 mile in southeast Minneosta, and a dense fog advisory remains in effect this morning. The tornadoes get all the headlines, but the fog is dangerous for travel today. Take it easy as visibilities will drop rapidly on your morning commute.

Current weather and visibilites

Dense fog advisory

PH

Close to home, my brothers

Posted at 12:26 PM on January 8, 2008 by Craig Edwards (3 Comments)

Twenty-four hours ago I was writing about the unusual severe weather that was occurring in central Wisconsin in the heart of winter. In the weather forecasting and warning business you learn to take advantage of clues that Mother Nature presents about the short term potential for disaster.

While listening to Paul Huttner doing his 345PM chat with Tom Crann, it was reported that a tornado warning was issued for a severe storm in the vicinity of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Knowing that very talented meteorologists were monitoring the radar and environment in the Milwaukee Weather Service Office I suspected this might be the real deal. Moving quickly to the weather lab and pulling up the radar imagery it was indeed a classic super cell with very strong rotation.

I made the phone call to my brother in Fontana Wisconsin and got no answer. The family had already taken shelter in the basement. Speaking to my brother Tommy around 5PM he suggested the storm was only about 5miles south of his home about 350PM. He noted the tornado sirens had been sounded, the sky was black and hail pelted the area.

Paul Huttner’s earlier blog has a great link to the radar imagery of this extremely rare severe weather outbreak.

Not much more than a week ago, the same area of Wisconsin was buried under eight inches of snow. It is highly likely that tornadoes occurred in southern Wisconsin with remaining snow piles and ice on Lake Geneva.

The secondary story is the flooding that is a result of the rapid snow melt and drenching rains.
Precipitation estimates

Our next chance for precipitation moves in on Wednesday night and extends into Thursday night.
CE

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