Some facts about this blizzard…
1. Western/Northwestern WI was not the only hardest hit place…In fact a large area of WI saw between 10 to 20 plus inches of snow…More on this later…
2. This storm brought new records to many areas of WI….
3. This storm does rank in the top 5 biggest snow storms….
4. The snowfall amounts were hard to measure, I’d say over half the reports I see are just guess amounts… I know some are because I did get and take measurements in a few areas…The ones I did do them reports were off by 1 to 6 inches.. Leads me to think they were guessing…Here at The Weather Center we had a hard time getting measurements, and we been doing this for over 25 yrs.
Other facts will follow as we go through this lengthy write up.
This storm was a hard one to forecast from the get go…. Most of the models were not in good agreement on this storm… ECWMF did have the best handle on this storm..The when the SREF model was able to latch on it also showed about the same track as ECWMF…While GFS was so far South until the last min, Still the model was to far South……This was not a normal system that should have brought this kind of snows to WI… We like to see a CO low or a TX panhandle hooker type system… This system came in from the western Coastline and track into IA then right over MKE….
The track was such it brought heavy snows to most of WI….Here are some maps from the NWS offices that cover WI….
Again the maps above came from the NWSs covering WI.....One can easy see Western WI was not the hardest hit...Maps show much of the Central state was hit..In fact Northeastern WI was the hardest hit area....So this should debunk all the reports from the local news media....
Maps below are the SFC OBS... You can easily how the low deepened rather fast...
This blizzard caused many local LEA to close down roads throughout a good area dof WI..So far there is two deaths that we are aware of.... So this blizzard was a deadly one....The storm started late Friday night and lasted well into Saturday evening in Western/Northwestern WI... Also lasted through much of the day on Sunday for Eastern and Northeastern parts of the State......The storm also caused power outages in parts of the State..Some areas still without power today.The State Patrol had declared a 146 mile stretch of I-94 impassable from Hudson to Tomah WI...
This storm produced winds from 15 to 25 MPH with gusts up to 50 MPH throughout the State...Here at the office we had a wind gusts to 43.7 MPH... Near to white conditions were seen throughout the area,as well as most of WI....This blizzard did bring down a very cold air mass with it... Wind chill readings fell to the -25 to -35 below....Tonight should see temps fall into the -20 throughout much of the area....for -1 to -20 temps on tap for all of WI tonight...
How does this storm add up to others that hit WI...
From the data so far it will rank in the top five for many areas and number 1 spot for other areas....I was hoping that the Wisconsin State Climatology would have had their write posted on how this storm compairs to others..As the time of this writing they don't... So going off of our records in our data base...
For the local area this blizzard did beat out the 1991 Halloween blizzard in many ways... First off this storm did produce a few more inches than the Halloween blizzard that produced 15 to 22 inches of snow across the area.. This storm also had more wind with it than the Halloween Blizzard..... Back in 2006 in March 13 through the 14...17 to 32 inches of snow fell which would also beat out the Halloween blizzard of 91... So using records back through 1991 till now this blizzard ranks in the number spot..The Halloween Blizzard comes in a number 3 While the blizzard of March 2006 comes in at number 1.....
Going back from 1982... Jan 22-23 the local areas saw 10 to 20 inches of snow..Then in Nov 30 -Dec 2 1985 the area saw 10 to 18 inches of snow.... So lets break this down by a listing...
Number 1 = March 13-14 2006 (17 to 32 inches of snow fell) Which many locals are saying it was the worst storm they have seen
Number 2 = Dec 11-13 2010 (10 to 23 inches fell)
Number 3 Oct 31 - Nov 2 1991 (15 to 22 inches of snow fell)
Number 4 Jan 22-23 1982 (10 to 20 inches fell)
Number 5 Nov 30 - Dec 2 (10 to 18 inches fell)
This is for the local area only...Once the Wisconsin State Climatology issues their report then will will compair the Dec 11-13 2010 blizzard to see where it stands in the top for the State of WI.
Other great weather blogs to check out for info on the 2010 blizzard.....
http://nwwisconsinweather.blogspot.com/
http://timsweatherblog.blogspot.com/
http://osnw3.blogspot.com/
