It's the Daffodils Before the Storm, Twin Tornadoes Hit Kenosha, Wisconsin

Thanks to Wendy Moore

Well, we have all heard of the calm before the storm...but how about the daffodils before the storm. That is exactly what is happening in West Lafayette on Division Road. The daffodils are confused and they should be. Today will be our third record-setting day in a row. Unfortunately, these daffodils will not make it to maturity and hopefully Wendy can cover them up with mounds of mulch and dirt to maybe salvage some of them for our real Spring which is still months away.



Last night we had several weather watches and warnings but no real severe weather reports. It was just a sign of things to come for later today. Take a look at these. The one thing that caught everybody's attention to our north yesterday was the vivid lightning and the heavy rain. The lightning was almost constant in Monon, Wolcott, and Remington and lasted well over an hour. Mary Anne reported over 2 inches of rain in Remington by midnight last night with 45 mph wind gusts in Monon reported close to 9:30 p.m. The frontal system causing this weather will not move our way until this afternoon. So if anything we will have more widespread thunderstorm activity and a much higher risk of having nickel-size hail or larger, 58 mph wind gusts or greater, flooding rain, and possible isolated tornadoes. Let's hope we do not see a repeat of what happened in Wisconsin. Here is what it looked like near Kenosha, Wisconsin just off Interstate 94.


Courtesy of NWS Milwaukee

You can see one of two funnels that formed in southern Wisconsin. There apparently were two tornadoes that danced around one another just off the interstate. These are sometimes called twin tornadoes and are rare occurrences even during the peak of severe weather season. It is a sign of intense shear and instability coming together in the atmosphere. Since I drive this route several times a year this really caught my attention. Racine, Wisconsin actually reported falling debris from the sky. An apartment complex had its roof ripped off in this area and at least a dozen homes were damaged. Luckily, I do not think anybody was hurt. But the news was not as good out of Missouri last night where at least 2 people were killed in tornadoes. Overall at least 31 tornadoes were reported last night across the country along with over 100 reports of damaging wind and large hail. It is part of the same storm we talked about here on the blog on Friday that caused over 1 million power outages out West.

This is a blunt reminder of how severe weather in the Midwest is possible any time of day and any time of the year. I think our biggest threat of severe weather at home today will move through in the afternoon. While tornadoes will be possible, I do think our biggest risk will be damaging wind gusts of 70 mph. We have a strong jet stream aloft and near the ground we have wind speeds close to 70 mph at about 2,500 feet that can easily be dragged to the ground during thunderstorms this afternoon. So make sure to have a plan B this afternoon and I will keep you updated as needed here on the blog and the tube. In the meantime, here is your timeline for our highest risk of severe thunderstorms today.

These storms should be quick-movers and race through the area at over 55 mph. Be safe and stay calm. We will get through this together, just like we did the blizzard!

Warmest January Readings on Record May Give Way to Severe Thunderstorms

A January Paradise at the Park

I had a great day with my kids at Armstrong Park but the latest maps in this afternoon are telling us this will be no walk in the park. My daughters and I enjoyed their last day of Christmas vacation by feeding the ducks. Amazing we did not need our coats as you see above! Lauren was a little scared of the Canada geese that hissed at us, but she really enjoyed feeding the mallards. These were the same ducks that were standing on ice just a few days ago. Today, there wasn't any sign of ice or winter. It is hard to believe just a few days ago we had a low of -1 in Lafayette and today we were nearly 70 degrees warmer! Nothing surprises me about our weather anymore.

We have to remember that this warm weather usually does not come without paying a price and we could see strong thunderstorms tonight and severe thunderstorms develop on Tuesday as a result. How do you get thunderstorms in January? Well, it is not unprecedented for a single isolated storm to pop up this time of year, but I have several thunderstorms in the forecast over the next couple of days. Something has to give when we are breaking not just records, but all-time record temperatures for the month of January. The low this morning of 61 degrees was the warmest temperature, I could find for nighttime lows in January for Lafayette dating back to 1896 or since records have been kept! If this was not enough, today's high of 69 smashed the old record of 62 set back in 1989. This was our second warmest January day ever recorded as you see above! Only one January day in 1950 was warmer than today. Today was warmer than 3,471 January days on record since 1896. This warmth is mind-boggling.



Our weather watcher numbers were amazing and the only thing keeping us from reaching 70 degrees today was all of the cloud cover. Today's highs were normally what we would have seen on May 7th. So what happens when you go from May weather back to January weather all in one day? Rough weather and possible severe thunderstorms. I will have more on this tonight on the newscast.

You can see the warning signs above on the national satellite and radar composite. Look at the nasty line of thunderstorms that extended nearly a thousand miles from Michigan to Oklahoma this evening. You can see the clash of seasons causing the trouble with huge temperature differences ahead of and behind the cold front. This squall line will move our way on Tuesday. Check back here on the blog for the latest timeline on our record-breaking warmth and severe weather. I think we will break another record high on Tuesday before winter returns late Tuesday night. Stay safe and stay tuned. Feed the ducks while you can! They were still hungry when we left.

The Mother of All January Thaws on the Way! But Winter is Far From Over!

It has been several years since we have seen temperatures in January go from highs near 10 to possible record highs near 60 as we head into next Tuesday. This volatile pattern is being caused by very chilly ocean temperatures in the Pacific Ocean also known as La Nina. This is causing a huge roadblock in the atmosphere and playing havoc with the jet stream and the world weather patterns. Portions of the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe could see more than 6 inches of snow per hour today with wind gusts over 140 mph. Snowfall totals could easily exceed 6 feet by early next week.

What it means for us here at home is extreme swings in our weather pattern. I see huge ups and downs for the remainder of January. Our 50 degree warm-up in daytime highs may even bring strong thunderstorms. Now as we know in Indiana the transition can be bumpy. This weekend, despite the rumors circulating out there.... I do not see any big ice storms or significant icing. We could see a little patchy freezing drizzle and fog late tonight and Saturday morning. Temperatures should be near freezing and quickly rise above freezing during the day on Saturday keeping any ice accumulations to a minimum. I am more concerned about patchy dense fog developing as the warmer air moves in. It could be foggy for a good portion of the day especially for our counties to the north with the heavier snow cover. So fog is my number one concern this weekend, but by Sunday the fog should lift giving way to 50s.

Now the big question is just how strong those thunderstorms will be late Monday into Tuesday. Will there be tornadoes as close to home as Missouri? Could we have a repeat of severe weather like we saw in January of 1996? How much rain will we receive and how bad will the flooding be next week. I will answer these questions tonight on the newscast and post your answers here on the blog this evening.

Florida Freeze Update:

I did check into the falliing iguanas near Miami, Florida yesterday and it really did happen. Reports of iguanas falling out of trees and laying on the ground as if they were dead were running rampant yesterday morning. Since those lizards are cold-blooded the cold weather caused them to go into hibernation mode. They usually come back to life again once the sun heats them back up during the day. The good news for those iguanas is that is was a very short hibernation. Here at home winter is ready to go into hibernation, but it will likely spring back to life like those iguanas by later next week so enjoy the warmer weather while you can. Have a great weekend.

Next Chance of a Significant Snowstorm:

The 3rd Week of January

Strange Phenomena in the Indiana Sky & Snow Flurries Fly in Florida

Thanks to Kim Clute in rural Otterbein

Hello my name is Kim Clute. I took this picture standing out my back door today. Not for sure what it is but there were three of these on the horizon this morning, (spaced far enough from each other that I could not get them all in on screen), January 2nd, 2008. They were so pretty, I just happened to notice them as I was looking out the door.

Rainsville Sundog during Wednesday's Sunset

There have been several weather phenomena reported in the Lafayette skies since 2008 arrived. The two pictures above are examples of sun dogs and can be traced to our air mass originating from near the Arctic Circle. This very cold air mass produces millions of hexagonal or 6-sided ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. These ice crystals fall through the atmosphere like leaves face down causing sunlight to be refracted or bent producing amazing optical effects. These ice crystals are essentially acting like mirrors and that is why Kim saw 3 bright objects in the sky.

The one bright object was the sun while the two other objects were reflections of the sun on each side of it. Sun dogs are most common in the winter but you can see these phenomena during the warmer months as well here in Lafayette, although they are less common. The best time of day to look for sun dogs or mock suns is close to sunrise or sunset.

There have also been reports of sun pillars in the sky around the area which is more of a common sight for places like Alaska. These are formed by ice crystals that are formed closer to the ground in extremely cold weather. Usually you need single digit temperatures and sub-zero weather. These ice crystals not only flutter through the air like flat pancakes, but they are all lined up perfectly allowing the sunlight to be reflected straight up into the sky like a spotlight. Although my camera did not do a very good job capturing it i will make sure to post a picture from last year during one of our cold spells and even show it on the news tonight.

In the meantime, please bundle up. Nature is giving us plenty of signs in the sky to take care of ourselves.This is frostbite weather with wind chills from -10 to -20 frostbite is possible in as little as 40 minutes first thing this morning. Here is the frostbite chart below. Protect any exposed skin, your pets, and your pipes.

Talk about a cold pattern. Freeze warnings extend all the way down to Florida. Last night I called home and made sure my Mom and Dad in Jacksonville realized how close they were to seeing snow. Here was a radar snap shot just after 1 a.m. this morning.

I think the blue radar echoes depicting snow flurries in this picture will actually make it to the Florida coast between Daytona Beach and Cape Canaveral. I will have a Florida snow update here on the blog today.

Florida Snow Update:

My forecast of snow in Florida has been confirmed this morning check out the proof! It was the first report of snow in Florida since 2006. You can see the graupel snowflakes that fell on car rooftops in Daytona Beach and it was confirmed by an official National Weather Service storm report out of Melbourne, Florida.


Courtesy of Janet Wolfe
Tamoka Farms Rd. Daytona Beach, Florida

This type of snow you see in the above picture is formed the same way lake-effect snow is formed here in the Midwest. Very cold air going over the warmer ocean creates what is called ocean-effect snow. Temperature differences of an astounding 40 degrees was observed between the warmer ocean and the lower 5,000 feet of the atmosphere this morning near the Florida coastline. This created plenty of instability and it was the big reason Florida had snow this morning!

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MELBOURNE FL

912 AM EST THU JAN 03 2008..

VOLUSIA FL BROADCAST MEDIA

SEVERAL REPORTS OF SNOW FLURRIES FROM ORMOND BEACH TO DAYTONA BEACH AND PORT ORANGE. FIRST FLURRY REPORTS AT APPROXIMATELY 730 AM IN ORMOND BEACH AND STILL OCCURRING AS OF 905 AM IN PORT ORANGE. SNOW FLURRY REPORTS WERE RECEIVED FROM DAYTONA BEACH OBSERVER.

There are also strange reports of iguanas dropping out of trees near Miami due to the unusually cold weather. I will check into it. The one bit of good news is that the wind stayed up overnight in Florida keeping temperatures a little warmer and saving most of the produce crops. It was still the coldest night in 5 years in Tampa.

Developing.....

Looking & Feeling Like Alaska As Wind Chills Plunge to -16

Greta the Goose in Remington

Wow! This weather takes your breath away. As of noon wind chills across the area were still between 5 and 10 below zero. This morning we did not set any record lows but our wind chill made it feel like we did as it plummeted to -16. The actual record low for this date is -15 for Lafayette set back in 1968. Tonight, actual temperatures will fall below zero it looks like throughout the area. Keep the pets in and stay warm and make sure to protect the pipes by letting those faucets drip! Francesville hit 4 below zero this morning and they may see temperatures as low as 8 below zero by Wednesday morning. Lafayette will be closer to 2 below zero. One of the key factors will be snow cover. The heavier snowpack in the northern part of our viewing area will allow the earth to radiate its energy out to space more efficiently causing our lowest temperatures to be in our northern counties. Here is the latest snow cover map.

Areas shaded in white have between 4 and 6 inches of snow and will bottom out close to 5 below zero. Areas in the pink will be closer to 8 below zero with a snowpack that is between 6 and 8 inches of snow. Areas to the south of the white and pink shaded areas have between 1 and 3 inches of snow and will bottom out close to 2 below zero, which includes Lafayette, Attica, Frankfort, and Kokomo. Please be careful this is dangerously cold weather or what I call frostbite weather. Greta the Goose in the above picture may be buried in snow up in Remington, but this weekend here is what Greta the Goose will look like.

This is Greta the Goose without the snow! Greta will be able to show off her Purdue cheerleading outfit and boiler up with warmer highs in the 40s back in the forecast by Saturday with plenty of melting snow. This will be a dramatic change and it could not come soon enough. Here were today's high temperatures and notice it was colder here at home than portions of Alaska!

Today's Highs:

Lafayette, Indiana 13 degrees
Anchorage, Alaska 24 degrees
Juneau, Alaska 41 degrees

It is hard to believe we were about 30 degrees warmer than Alaska. Actually if you walked outside you would believe it! Hang in there we have golf weather on the way by next week with even thunderstorms back in the forecast. I will have more on this January thaw tonight on the news and during the week here on the blog. Have a great day and keep on moving! You have to in this weather.

It is a White New Year's! Portions of Fulton County Close in on 6 inches of Snow!

Happy New Year! We may not have had a White Christmas, but we got a White New Year. Mark in Monticello said it is a beautiful wintry scene up in White County. The wet snow that came in last night is sticking to all the trees. The roads are plowed but coated with an icy layer because all that rain we had last night has frozen. We have had between 1 and 2 inches of snow over most of Tippecanoe County. Areas to our north have had a lot more snow. Portions of Newton, Jasper, White, Cass, Miami, Pulaski, and Fulton Counties have had between 3 and 5.5 inches of snow as of 10 a.m. with another 1 to 3 inches of snow likely during the day. So when all is said and done we will end up with snow totals of close to 3 inches in Lafayette to 7 inches in Rochester. Here are more snow totals as of 10 a.m.

Rochester 5.5"
Wolcott 3.5"
Rensselaer 3.5"
Monticello 3"
Logansport 3"
Francesville 3"
Medaryville 3"
Winamac 3"
West Lafayette 2.5"
Kokomo 2"
Delphi 2"
Lafayette 1.5"

Even though we are not expecting heavy snow amounts today, the snow that is falling is a much drier snow than we saw last night so we will have some blowing and drifting snow keeping roads slick through the rest of today and tonight. Be careful if you are traveling. Wind speeds will also pick up with wind gusts of 30 to 40 mph likely. Drifting snow problems will be more prominent in a line from Winamac to Logansport to near Kokomo. These areas will have heavier bursts of lake-effect snow today and will receive another 1 to 3 inches of snow. In Tippecanoe County we will likely see another inch of snow today.

We could have had a lot more snow but total snow amounts will end up close to the original forecast of 3 to 6 inches for most areas. This is pretty amazing considering how much different this storm behaved than expected. The temperatures were much warmer yesterday evening than expected costing us about 1 to 3 inches of snow. Instead of moderate snow we were stuck with a few rainy downpours. The second thing that kept us from seeing higher totals was the storm track wobbled about 40 miles farther north than expected. This track brought in a dry slot and kept the heavier snow well to our north. Just think what could have been. Well, this is what we could have had and it is probably a good thing we didn't because travel is treacherous across northern Indiana this morning and travel is not advised. Some areas near the lake could end up with a whopping 12" to 18" of snow!

Here are the highest totals in Indiana that I could find:

Mishawaka 10.5"
Wakarusa 10"
La Porte 10"
Elkhart 9"
Walkerton 8.0"
North Judson 8.0"

Happy New Year! We Ring in 2008 With Blustery & Cold Conditions!

I am just getting home and it is certainly cold! The car doors were iced shut and the roads are slick. The big story is that we are dodging most of the snow in our viewing area. But keep in mind Pulaski, Fulton and northern Miami Counties will still see 3 to 6 inches of snow. The rest of us will only see an inch or two of snow at the most.

The storm track changed rapidly and all the upper-level dynamics needed for a snowstorm went north of us as a result. Plenty can go wrong when forecasting snow in Indiana. One interesting note is that this storm literally popped up out of nowhere on the models yesterday morning. Usually we can see snowstorms at least a couple days in advance. So is it really surprising that we had so little snow? Not really. It would have been shocking if the models had been showing it for a few days ahead of this event which they usually do. In fact, I can usually sniff out a big snowstorm a good week or more in advance. The current pattern we were in just did not really scream of a big snow potential for us. I still like our chances of big snow or ice storms as we head into February and March when the pattern flips back.

We may have dodged the snow but not the extreme cold blast moving in. Wind chills will fall to below zero this evening. Bundle up! Watch out for black ice and slick spots as all of that water from the rain and snow freezes. Keep two hands on the steering wheel with expected wind gusts near 40 mph through the rest of our New Year's Day. It will be a great day to stay in and watch lots of good football. Happy New Year! Thanks for making 2007 so special and I look forward to a great 2008 weatherwise and otherwise!