Vince_Condella's Blog

Here's a story about good karma being passed along to one of nature's most frail creatures.  A few weeks ago a woman riding her bicycle in a rural community in New York state spotted an injured Monarch butterfly.  It looked like it had a broken wing.  You may recall me writing about the amazing migration of the Monarchs, who travel from northern latitudes all the way to the mountains of Mexico to escape the cold of winter.  How these little insects make it all the way to their destination is quite stunning, but doing it with a broken wing would be impossible.

A broken wing on a Monarch butterfly, similar to the one found by a rural New York state woman.

The woman, Jeannette Brandt, transported the butterfly home in her empty water bottle, then fed it rotting pears and a water/honey mix.  The food sustained the little guy.  Now, how does she fix the wing?  She and her partner, Mike Parwana, found an internet video posted by Live Monarch Foundation, a non-profit group from Boca Raton, Florida, instructing people on how to fix broken butterfly wings.  The couple fashioned a tiny splint made from cardboard and attached it to the wing using contact cement.  The wing healed.

 

Jeannette and Mike took the butterfly in a box to the nearest truck stop asking if any truckers would transport the Monarch south.  Sure enough, a trucker from Alabama would be driving through Florida and volunteered to take it with him.  Earlier this week he called the couple and told them the Monarch was released in Florida and hopefully on its way to a successful migration.

 

That's my feelgood story for the weekend.  Stay warm. :)

 

For many people, this past week has been one filled with pain.  They can truly blame it on the weather.  If you suffer from any type of arthritis, you know what I mean.  Our bodies act like a human barometer and react to the changes in atmospheric pressure.

 

The pressure in the atmosphere, often referred to as the barometric pressure because it is measured using a barometer, is literally the weight of the atmosphere.  When measured at sea level, the typical atmospheric weight is around 14.7 pounds per square inch.  That's a lot of heaviness pushing us down.  Except we don't get crushed.  Our body "pushes back" and maintains a balance.  Afterall, humans evolved under these atmospheric pressures, and our blood pressure and fluid flow in the body helps maintain our form.

 

However, because our bodies are filled with so much liquid, we act as a human barometer.  When atmospheric pressure becomes lower with the approach of a low-pressure storm system, the fluid in our joints expands a bit and exerts often painful pressure.  When high pressure arrives and pushes down a little harder, the fluid in our joints recedes a bit.

 

The painful part of all of this fluid movement occurs when high and low-pressure systems pass over us in rapid succession, such as every other day.  And that is exactly what has been happening these past 6 or 7 days.  There have been wild swings in atmospheric pressure, and the joints in our body feel them.

 

Remember when grandpa and grandma used to tell you it was going to rain because their knees told them?  They weren't kidding.

 

 

It's human nature to assign blame to all events that don't match our preferred outcome.  Yesterday's icy evening rush hour is a perfect example.  Today many people want to figure out who to blame for all of the accidents.  Why weren't the salt trucks out there sooner?  Why weren't we warned of this impending doom?

 

The convective snow showers were a fluke.  As I explained in yesterday's blog, they weren't unusual or rare.  Heck, they weren't even a surprise.  I can only speak for my forecast from Sunday night, but it included scattered snow showers and flurries for Monday.  These are quite common events in November.

 

The fluke part of the deal was the timing.  Striking the main traffic area right at the heart of the evening commute home was a cruel twist by nature.  The salters did their best to get where they needed to go, but often they were trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic just like everybody else.  And with the widely scattered nature of these snow showers, there was no way salt trucks could get to the spots where they were needed before the snow showers hit.

 

The particular heavy snow shower that caused all of the problems became intense over southern Sheboygan county before 4 p.m., then steadily crept south through Ozaukee and Washington counties during the next hour.  It arrived at our Brown Deer studio on the north side of Milwaukee County just as we began our 5 p.m. newscast, and the rest is history.

 

Another part of the equation is the air temperature, and that remained below freezing throughout the late afternoon.  Pavement temperatures were perfectly suited to create "black ice", the sheets of clear ice that allow the black pavement to show.

 

Oh yeah, and then there is the critical part of the equation.  Many people don't slow down.  And those that do drive safely and slow to a proper speed are often plowed into by those travelling too fast.

 

One of our regular bloggers, FOX 6 Fan, said it best in his comment to my blog yesterday:  sometimes we just have to slow down.  Conditions aren't always going to be perfect for us.  And even though it may be difficult for many people, we need to adjust and go with the flow - even if the flow is slower than we would prefer.

The snowbursts that blew through here Monday afternoon and early evening were not out of the ordinary.  In fact, these convective snow showers are quite common in November and December.  But it was all about the wrong timing.  As luck would have it, the strongest and largest snow shower came through the Milwaukee-Waukesha metro area during the evening rush hour.  With temperatures below freezing, any moisture from the snow iced up on the pavement.

 

Convective snow showers form in a similar way to their counterparts in the summer months.  We have a roaring jet stream overhead providing lift and spin in the atmosphere.  The cold air aloft also added to the instability.  Air parcels rose quickly and condensed into cumulus clouds.  The best lift occured in a layer of the atmosphere that was best for dendritic ice crystal growth, and this resulted in rapid snowflake development.

 

Just like being caught under a summer snow shower, a convective snowburst will reduce visibility quickly.  But it was the ice that really did the damage.  Moisture froze on contact with the cold pavement of the roadways, and the ice rink formed in a hurry.

 

Remember that bridges and overpasses are the most slippery.  They are not in contact with the warmer ground.  Wind can whip beneath the roadway of a bridge and freeze it from top and bottom.  Even exit and entrance ramps are slippery.

 

This snowburst made for a traffic mess and a lot of fender benders, but it served as a solid reminder of the season that lies ahead of us.

California:  nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.  That's what a kid from the Midwest like me thinks of our most populated state.  With over 36 million people living within its borders, the left coast has a wealth of natural resources that are constantly under stress and strain.  Sometimes too wet after being pounded by Pacific storms, other years leave it in a drought with reservoirs drying up.  Then there are the famous earthquakes.  This weekend it is the Santa Ana winds fueling wildfires.

 

Thousands of acres have burned and multi-million dollar homes have gone up in smoke the past few days as winds roared over 70 miles per hour.  These gales simply fan the flames and send hot embers travelling over a mile and allowing them to ignite fires downwind.  This has been a true nightmare for the residents as well as the brave and tireless firefighters.

 

The Santa Ana winds are named for the Santa Ana mountain range just east of the Los Angeles basin.  Clockwise winds around high pressure over the Great Basin (Nevada, Utah & Colorado) produce an east wind at the Earth's surface that pushes between the narrow mountain passes.  When the wind is forced through a narrow opening, it accelerates.  You feel the same thing when passing between two buildings on a windy day.  (This is know as the Bernoulli's principle, named after Dutch-Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli.)

High pressure over the western U.S. can create east surface winds that squeeze between the passes of the Santa Ana mountains.

Not only do the winds speed up through the mountain passes, they then descend down the west slope of the mountains and into the LA Basin.  As they move into lower elevations, gravity is greater, squeezing the air parcels and causing them to heat up by compression.

 

The result of atmospheric physics and thermodynamics is a hot, dry wind leaving misery in its path.  Our thoughts are with those in the LA Basin tonight. 

And you thought our winters can get cold!  The unmanned Phoenix spacecraft, sitting near the north polar region of Mars, has shut down, it's mission coming to an end after 5 months.  That is 2 months longer than mission scientists expected.  By all accounts, it has been a successful mission, drilling down into the ice beneath the Martian soil and sampling and analyzing the fourth rock from the Sun.

Artist drawing of the Phoenix lander on the north polar region of Mars.

Phoenix landed at the end of May and took advantage of the Martian summer to power its solar panels while studying the surface of Mars at around 68 degrees north latitude.  Plans called for a 3-month mission before the sun angle got too low to generate power using the solar panels.  But the spacecraft kept functioning until a dust storm kicked up and covered the solar panels with dust.  At the end of October, Phoenix went silent.  Soon the temperature will drop to around -238 degrees, and the spacecraft will be encased in frozen carbon dioxide.

 

It will take years for scientists to analyze all of the data.  Phoenix did confirm the presence of water ice beneath the surface.  The spacecraft was also looking for organics and other signs of life in an earlier time period.  Indeed, mission scientists think Mars may have been teeming with microbial life during a warmer era millions of years ago.

The Phoenix landing site near the Martian north pole.

Mars has always held the imagination of people through the ages.  It was once believed the planet contained canals of water and other life forms.  By the time the Phoenix data is analyzed, we may have an entirely different appreciation for the Red Planet.

I vividly remember as a kid growing up in the Chicago suburbs being in my room in the evening and picking up long-distance radio stations on my little AM transistor radio.  It fascinated me to listen in to WWL in New Orleans, WSB in Atlanta, or WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia.  These were powerful transmitting radio stations that suddenly came in clearly on many nights.

 

I went through a similar experience driving in my car this evening.  It was 6:45 p.m. and as I went up and down the AM dial I could clearly hear WSB in Atlanta, then WABC 770 out of New York City broadcasting the New York Rangers hockey game.  Another click down the dial brought in the sounds from Detroit talk radio WJR.  This was cool stuff and brought me immediately back to Lombard, Illinois and an 8-year-old nerdy kid.  I would write to these faraway radio stations, tell them the time and programming I heard so I could prove to them I actually heard them, and they would send me a cool 3 x 5 postcard with the station's call letters and city of origin.  (These are called QSL cards)  I would proudly hang these cards up on the bulletin board in my rooom right next to the Bobby Hull autographed photo and the White Sox line-up from the Chicago Tribune sports section.

An example of a QSL card commonly used by Amateur Radio (HAM) operators.

 

I didn't know it at the time, but our ability to hear AM radio stations long distance is due to ionospheric refraction.

If an AM radio station transmits a powerful signal, e.g. 50,000 watts or higher, it may refract (bend) off of the ionosphere hundreds of miles above the Earth.  This is called a Sky Wave.  (The ionosphere is a layer of charged particles surrounding the Earth)  Radio stations also transmit a Ground Wave, but this doesn't travel far, perhaps 50 to 100 miles depending on the station's power.

 

Many AM radio stations only transmit during daylight hours and power down at night.  This allows the more powerful stations to come through loud and clear.

 

Talk about a flashback to the days of my youth!  That ride in the car this evening took me back 45 years.

 

 

November 11 is an infamous day in weather history.  The Armistice Day storm of 1940 killed 154 people, most of them hunters in the Midwest who were out enjoying a fine late autumn day.

 

The western Great Lakes experienced temperatures in the 50s and 60s with a mild south wind.  But while it was in the mid 50s in Chicago, Sioux City, Iowa had a temperature of 12 degrees with a raging north wind.  Strong low-pressure over central Iowa deepened quickly during the overnight hours, strengthening to that of a minimal hurricane by midday on the 11th.

The primary Midwest weather forecast back in 1940 originated from the Weather Bureau office in Chicago.  This office was not manned 24 hours per day, and it was during the overnight hours when the storm became so powerful.

 

The result was an afternoon of sharply falling temperatures, howling wind, and blizzard conditions.  The low-pressure center had a central pressure of 28.66" over Duluth by the evening hours, with western Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa bearing the brunt of the snow and wind.  Snowfall of up to 27 inches was not uncommon.  Winds gusted over 50 miles per hour, and snowdrifts piled as high as 20 feet.

 

Many duck hunters were out along the Mississippi River enjoying a warm day when the storm came upon them.  Some escaped to islands on the river, but 5-foot waves and 50 mile per hour winds flooding their campgrounds.  Many froze to death.  Sixty-six sailors died on Lake Michigan when 3 freighters sank.  Thirteen died in Wisconsin and Illinois, 4 in Michigan, and 49 in Minnesota.

 

After this disaster, the Weather Bureau expanded the number of forecast offices in the Midwest and required 24-hour staffing.  This major storm in 1940 ranks as one of the greatest natural disasters to strike the Midwest.

This is the time of year when surface low-pressure systems can crank up the wind.  It's no surprise that November is known for strong winds.  The breeze is a result of the pressure gradient force.  Pressure gradient is simply the difference in atmospheric pressure over a certain distance.  When a low-pressure center is strong, meaning that is has a low central pressure, the surrounding pressure gradient force creates powerful winds.

 

That was the case on this date (November 10) in 1975 when the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior.  It went down in 530 feet of water and sent 29 crew to their death.  (Note: one of loyal bloggers, Basher51, is a fan of Great Lakes ships.  No doubt he knows this date in history quite well and has been on board some of the freighters that sail those mighty waters.)

The Edmund Fitzgerald

The "Fitz" was tossed around by huge waves that were created by a massive low-pressure center that intensified over a short amount of time, literally catching everyone by surprise.  The ship was on its way from Superior to Detroit filled with taconite (low grade iron ore).  Sustained winds over 50 miles per hour caused the Soo Locks to close.  Waves as high as 35 feet battered the Fitzgerald and another ship.  They both attempted to hug the Canadian shore of Lake Superior to seek some shelter, then cut southeast toward Whitefish Bay on the far southeast corner of the lake.  The Fitz went down before reaching the bay.

 

Another low-pressure center on this date in 1998 created massive wind here in southeast Wisconsin.  Peak wind gust in Milwaukee reached 68 miles per hour causing tree damage.  Heavy rainfall produced minor flooding, with 2.22" of rain measured at Mitchell International Airport.  The same powerful low-pressure peaked the wind at 95 miles per hour at La Crosse.

 

Some meteorologists refer to these monster low-pressure systems as inland hurricanes.  The pressure gradient force is a common event when the gales of November come blowing.

We are now entering the winter doldrums even though the snow hasn't piled up yet.  The lack of daylight is the tough part.  Now that we are back on Standard Time, our sunrise occurs around 6:40 a.m. and the Sun sets near 4:30 p.m.  That is less than 10 hours of daylight.  Perhaps the toughest to take is the early sunset.  By the time dinnertime rolls around, most of us are ready for bed.

 

Lack of daylight may be a contributor to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a depressive state that is felt by millions of people each winter.  Some believe the reason for feeling low during the winter is the lack of seratonin.  Others think it is caused by the production of melatonin which is produced in dim light and darkness by the pineal gland.

 

Use of a full spectrum light box may help many people battle SAD.  We have one here in the FOX 6 Forecast Office.  It is simply a desk lamp we keep near one of the computers.  Many people report relief from SAD by simply sitting in the presence of this full spectrum light but not looking directly at it.

 

SAD has often been reported in Nordic Countries.  Close to the Arctic Circle, residents of these countries experience far lesser amounts of daylight than we do in the winter.  Dr. Norman Rosenthal first proposed SAD here in the United States after he moved from South Africa to New York City and noted how sluggish he felt in winter.  He experimented with bright light exposure and it seemed to help him.

 

If the lack of daylight and the cold temperatures seem to bring you down, SAD may be the cause.  You are not alone and there are treatments available.  I encourage you to consult a mental health professional, and you may find the cure may be as simple as a dose of full spectrum light.

If there is one thing that gets the attention of our viewers, it is the jet contrail.   Or as some call them, chemtrails.  Every time I mention these or show photos of them, the e-mail fills quickly with people asking me to "tell the truth" to the viewers.

 

We all love a conspiracy.  Some of us more than others.  Many people are convinced that the U.S. Government or the CIA or some official agency is poisoning the residents of the United States by spewing chemicals from behind high-altitude jet aircraft.  They claim that we see those chemicals in the form of long, white lines in the sky.  The people who believe this also tell us that spraying of chemicals only occurs on certain scheduled days and that is why we don't see these white lines in the sky everyday.

 

I'm a firm believer in allowing everybody to have their own opinion on everything.  But here is the deal with jet contrails.  They are created when moisture in the exhaust of commercial jet aircraft freeze on contact with the cold air at high altitudes.  The moisture turns to ice crystals, so the long white lines are clouds made up of these ice crystals.  (Contrail is a combination of two words:  condensation trail)

 

You will often see the same thing on a cold winter day when a cloud of white is emitted from the exhaust pipe of your vehicle.  Moisture in the exhaust immediately condenses into a cloud when coming in contact with the cold air.  Our breath on a cold winter day is another example.

 

So why do we see long-lasting contrails on some days, while other days we see short ones that disappear immediately behind the jet?  That depends upon moisture.  If the air aloft is close to saturation, the contrails remain in the sky and spread out.  If the air aloft is not near saturation and quite dry, the contrail evaporates right away or doesn't appear at all.

 

Many people tell me they have just recently noticed contrails, and they are appearing in parts of the sky where they have never appeared before.  This is further proof, they say, that the government is stepping up its chemical poisoning and expanding it to other parts of the country.

 

But contrails are nothing new.  B-29 bombers in World War 2 used to create them because the exhaust from the engines contained moisture.  Contrails are created all over the globe and have been around ever since aircraft began flying at high altitudes where the temperature is well below zero.

 

You can believe what you want to believe, but now I have shared with you the real story behind contrails.

It has happened again.  Another entry can be made in the record book for November in Milwaukee.  You may recall yesterday that we set a new record high for the day of 73.  It was also the second warmest presidential election day on record for Milwaukee, with weather records going back to the 1800s.

 

Our friends at the National Weather Service in Milwaukee-Sullivan tell us today is another rare day.  Mitchell Int'l. Airport reached a high of 70 degrees at 1:35 p.m. before the wind turned southeast and cooled us down quickly.  We have now had 3 consecutive days with highs of 70 degrees or higher in Milwaukee, and that has never happened since weather records began in 1871.  Never happened.  That's pretty significant.

 

Our record high for today is 73 degrees set in 1978, and we may have gotten close to that one except Lake Michigan got in the act and put us in the big chill along the lakeshore.

 

A surface low-pressure center from the west is slowly approaching, and has been doing so for the past 4 or 5 days.  As it gets closer, the pressure gradient increases.  The pressure gradient becomes larger as atmospheric pressure changes rapidly over a certain distance.  You may notice on a weather map that isobars get packed closer together.  Isobars are lines of equal pressure.  When they appear packed tightly together, it means the surface pressure changes rapidly with horizonal distance.

Dark lines are isobars, or lines of equal pressure.  When they are packed tightly together, it means there are large atmospheric pressure changes and strong wind.

 

An increase in pressure gradient also increases the surface wind and begins to curve the wind in toward the center of the low-pressure center.  That curving, due to frictional effects of the Earth, allowed surface wind this afternoon to shift from south to southeast.  It was a subtle shift but enough to dramatically drop temperatures along the lakeshore into the 50s.  Meanwhile, those of you west of Highway 45 were still enjoying highs around 70.

 

Thursday the low-pressure gets a little closer and rain showers begin to move in during the afternoon.  This will bring an end to our mild temperatures.

This has been an historic election day, but not in the way you may think. Will there be record turnout across the country? Perhaps.  Will we elect the first African American president or the first female vice-president?  One way or the other, yes.  But the record I am writing about relates to weather.

 

Today's official high at Mitchell International Airport was 73 degrees, one degree higher than the old record high for November 4.  And we came up one degree short of tying the record warmest presidential election day in Milwaukee.  That occured on November 3, 1964 when we reached a high of 74.

 

How rare was today's warmth?  Going back 112 years of Milwaukee weather records, a presidential election day was warmer than 65 degrees only once, not counting today!  By the way, the coldest presidential election day was November 6, 1984 when we had a morning low of 26 degrees.

 

In the 29 presidential election days since 1896, Milwaukee has had 9 dry days (including today) and 20 days with precipitation.  The wettest was November 8, 1932 with 0.69" of rain.  Four election days had snow, with the greatest being 0.3" of snow that fell on November 3, 1992.

 

Hopefully you voted in this election.  It will be historic in several ways.

 

(Thanks to the folks at the National Weather Service office at Milwaukee-Sullivan for compiling these statistics.)

I realize I may be dating myself here, but for those of you old enough to remember the good old days of elections, they were back before exit polls and instant communication.  I recall watching election coverage when I was growing up, and back in the 1960s we often didn't know the result until late in the night or even the next morning.

 

Now we sometimes know the result as soon as the polls close, and networks can declare their winner state by state via exit polling.  I've got nothing against technology.  Heck, the best of technology makes my job easier than it was 10 or 20 years ago.  But sometimes being "old school" isn't such a bad thing either.

 

The problem with this political campaign is that we are all suffering from election burnout.  It's been a long strange trip.  We're happy to see it come to an end.  But yet it is an exciting time in our democracy.  We exercise our freedom to vote.  Very cool.  And then we wait.  Something tells me this year we may be waiting late into the night despite the exit polling and the TV networks predicting winners for each state as their polls close.

 

So pull up a chair, grab that bag of popcorn, and enjoy watching liberty at work.  As the numbers roll in, I'll think back to my days as a kid staying up late to get the results.  This year, as Yogi would say, It may be deja vu all over again.

Rip off those Halloween masks Friday evening and look up at the southwest sky for a beautiful sight: the thin crescent Moon will be right next to the blazing planet Venus. Meanwhile, to their left is the blazing planet Jupiter.  There you have it.  The three brightest objects in the sky other than the Sun will be on display for all of us to enjoy.



And it is not just Friday evening after sunset.  The thin crescent Moon will continue to move each night a little bit farther to the left.  So on Saturday evening the Moon will be between the two planets, and Sunday evening the Moon and Jupiter will be snuggling up next to each other.


Jupiter, the Moon, and Venus as seen in July 2007 from Albany, Missouri.  Photo by Dan Bush.  This will be similar to what we will see Saturday evening.


Here is another cool thing to watch for:  when you look at the crescent Moon, notice there is the very bright curved shaped illuminated by the Sun, and then the remainder of the Moon can be seen as a faint dark-gray circle.  This is called earthshine or sometimes referred to as the da Vinci glow, named after Leonardo da Vinci who first explained this sight.

The faint gray outline of the Moon that is not lit by sunlight is lit by the sunlight reflecting off of Earth.  Now that is spooky - in a fun Halloween kind of way.


Earthshine, also known as the da Vinci glow.  The dark gray area is the Moon illuminated by sunlight reflecting off the Earth.