Weather Conditions for Monday, May 16th 2011

It has been a beautiful day! It was in the 60's for most of the day, with zero cloud coverage and a light wind. The wind is currently 4mph coming from the NNE. We still have cooler temperatures at night though. Currently the temperature is 55 degrees F, and the low for tonight is supposed to get down to 33 degrees F so we are under a frost advisory for tonight again.

Graphic courtesy of The Weather Channel - www.weather.com

(Again, if you haven't seen my note below, the links I have been using for these images are live URLs from Weather.com and Intellicast, and whenever they are updated on those websites, they are also updated on here. So if you are looking at these images at a later date, they may not go with the descriptions I have for them.)

Looking at the current surface map we can see there isn't a whole lot going on in our area. There are a couple high pressure systems in the middle states which is giving us such beautiful weather. As long as these high pressure domes are in the area, I suspect that the weather will continue on like this for the next couple of days. 

Weather Conditions for Sunday, May 15th 2011

After our hot and humid weather this past week, we sure have had a cold and rainy weekend.

On Saturday the high was only 50 degrees F, and we received rain for most of the day.

Today the temperature has gone up a little bit, but not too much. It is currently 64 degrees F, and the low for tonight is supposed to get down to 36!! So currently we do have a "Frost Advisory" in our area for the night

Graphic courtesy of The Weather Channel - www.weather.com

If we look at the current weather situation in our area, there isn't a whole lot happening. All of the systems that  brought us humidity and thunderstorms last week are now far to the South and the East of us. The current wind direction is from the NNE at 20 mph, which has a lot to do with why our current temperatures are so cold. 

Graphic courtesy of Intellicast - www.intellicast.com

Looking at the jet stream we can also see that there is a small trough by Wisconsin which is bringing in that cold air from Canada and causing that Northern wind.

NOTE: I just realized that since I have been posting these images using the websites URLs, they are being updated at the same time that they are updated through the websites I get them from (www.weather.com, www.intellicast.com). So if you are looking at these images at a later date then when I posted them, they may not match with my descriptions well.

Weather Conditions for Wednesday May 11th, 2011

We're supposed to get some storms today, some possibly severe, which is awesome!
But I'd like to point out that weird weather pattern we have going on right now.

Graphic courtesy of The Weather Channel - www.weather.com

There is that low pressure system to the south, with that cold front, and stationary front. You can also see that it is occluded on the top, which may mean it could die out, but I don't think it is going to any time soon.

Graphic courtesy of Intellicast - www.intellicast.com

The jet stream is in a strange shape as well, creating TWO troughs, one in the western states and one by us. 

Currently it is hazy out, but sunny. the temperature is 65 degrees and expected to rise to mid to upper 70's. The wind is coming from the ENE at the moment, and if you look back at the current weather map you can see that it is because of that cold front. The wind is blowing across the front of the cold front. I'll check back in later once the storms start to build!

Weather Conditions for Monday, May 9th 2011

There is no better way to start off the day than with a thunderstorm! And a LOUD thunderstorm too!

A line of storms moved through the area this morning around 8:00 am. From then on it rained until about 1:00pm, where it just remained cloudy and windy. Cloud coverage has been at 100% all day with nimbostratus clouds. The wind is coming from the SSE at 15 mph. The current temperature is 55 degrees F with no real noticeable wind chill. 

Graphic courtesy of The Weather Channel - www.weather.com

Looking at this surface map we see the storms that were affecting us this morning over the middle portion of the state. There is a stationary front in southern Minnesota and NE Iowa that is causing all this precipitation. 

Graphic courtesy of Intellicast - www.intellicast.com

The jet stream is looking slightly zonal, with a small trough in the Western states. It moves up slightly by us, almost creating an Omega pattern, but it isn't quite at that point yet.

Graphic courtesy of The Weather Channel - www.weather.com

Looking at lightning strikes, we can see that all of these storms in Wisconsin at the moment are creating lightning. There have even been some reports of hail in the area. 

My prediction for tonight into tomorrow, is more chances of thunderstorms tonight (crossing my fingers!) and tomorrow as well. Tomorrow the temperatures are supposed to become higher, around 76 degrees F for the high, with a chance of Isolated thunderstorms in the evening.

Weather Conditions for Thursday May 5th 2011

It was rainy for the majority of the morning today, with overcast skies (nimbostratus clouds). Around 10:00am the clouds started to break up and turn into cumulonimbus clouds, and there were just a couple short bursts of rain after that.

The high for today was 55 degrees, so it stayed on the cooler side, compared to yesterday. The low for tonight is supposed to be 39 degrees F. There currently isn't a wind, and things are pretty calm.

Graphic courtesy of The Weather Channel - www.weather.com

When we look at the current surface map, we can see that the cold front causing all the rain this morning is now past us and on the Eastern part of the state. Things are definitely calm in our area, and they look pretty calm in the rest of the country too aside from that cold front. 

Graphic courtesy of Intellicast - www.intellicast.com

We are seeing a very zonal jet stream at the moment, which is another reason for all this calm weather. 

My predictions for tomorrow are calm, and beautiful with higher temperatures. Something to look forward to. :)

Weather Conditions for Wednesday, May 4th 2011

On Monday it was May 2nd... but it felt like the end of NOVEMBER! The high was 39 degrees, and it was absolutely awful. In MAY!!!

Today was another story. Today it was beautiful! The high today was 63 degrees, it is currently 52 degrees. Clear skies all day, with a couple cirrus clouds every once in a while. The wind is coming from the SSE at 8mph.

Graphic courtesy of The Weather Channel - http://www.weather.com/

If we look at the current surface map, we can see the end of that cold front/warm front system, the occlusion, heading our way. We will probably end up with some rain tonight and tomorrow because of that. 

Graphic courtesy of Intellicast - http://www.intellicast.com/

When we look at the jet stream we can see that there is a nice trough right where that cold front/warm front system is that is heading our way. If that formed more toward the East I think it could have been a pretty nasty system, but it is occluded, which means it is dying out and the most we will probably get is rain.

Data Analysis of January, February, March and April to date.

So far it seems like it has been a crazy year weather-wise. Here are the past four months summed up.



Temperature



In January we definitely see a lot of cooler temperatures, and a sharp drop in temperatures toward the end of the month. The temperatures fluctuate quite a bit.

In February we see a lot of fluctuation of temperatures, a little bit more than in January. There is a larger drop in temperature towards the beginning of the month, and then some higher temperatures, in the 50’s, in the middle of the month.

In March the fluctuation in temperature seems a bit more dramatic. There are some really low temperatures in the beginning of the month and then some high temperatures in the middle of the month. The temperatures at the end of the month are forming a rising trend and we move into April.

In April the temperatures haven’t fluctuated as much as past months, but there are still some changes. There is a period of really high temperatures, and then a longer period of time with some cooler temperatures. The large spike in temperature around April 10^th is I believe the same time we had Severe Weather in our area.

Precipitation/Rainfall

Since the Metstation here on campus only measures precipitation in amount of Rainfall, there is no data available for January, since it did not rain because of such low temperatures!



In February there was one day where there was rainfall. If we look at both temperature and rainfall, we can see that the temperature was higher, or rising when the rainfall occurred.

When we look at rainfall in March, we see that there is a larger amount of rain, which is because of the higher temperatures. The majority of the rainfall that occurred, happened on days with warmer average temperatures.

April rainfall has significantly increased compared to March, February and January. The temperatures are higher for the most part, and instead of snowfall we are receiving rain as precipitation.

Wind Direction

The prevailing wind direction in January was West, followed by North West and West South West.

In February the prevailing wind direction was also West, like January. On the one day that there was rainfall, the wind was coming from the South East.



In March West is still a prevailing wind direction, but East is just as prevalent. With each month West is occurring less.

In April the West wind directions have slowed down quite a bit, and the leading Wind direction is East. This could be because of the increasing amount of low pressure systems that have moving across the country from the West, causing a lot of strange weather.

Summary

There are a number of trends that are prevalent in all of these graphs. With the temperature graphs, it is obvious that the temperature is rising with each month, albeit very slowly. When looking at the rainfall graphs, it is obvious that there is more and more rain with each month, due to the warmer temperatures. When comparing the wind direction graphs, there are less days with wind coming from the West with every month, and more days with wind coming from the East. There are a few anomalies that stick out, for example in the January graph there are a couple days where the temperature is extremely low compared to the rest of the days in the month. In February one week shows cold temperatures, and then the next week has the highest temperatures so far at that point. In the beginning of March there was an extremely cold day and then temperatures went back to 30’s, 40’s and 50’s shortly afterwards. In April on anomaly is around the 10^th or 11^th when temperatures reached the highest so far. This was when there was a lot of severe weather moving through our area due to a large trough in the jet stream. There were many tornadoes all over the state as a result of this.

Climograph

When we compare this data to a climograph of past months in Eau Claire, we see that the overall average temperatures have been normal, with a few anomalies here and there. There definitely hasn’t been as much rainfall, but that could be because of the snow and sleet we have gotten instead of rain this month and last month.

The average maximum temperature for April is only a little low (52 deg F, compared to 56-57), after having a couple days of temperatures in the 30’s and 40’s it seems as if it should be lower than that. We did have a couple days with high temperatures thrown in the mix as well though, which would raise the average a bit. Even though the weather we’ve been having recently has seemed strange, the data here shows that the temperatures are in the normal range. 

All graphs were created by me and belong to me. So don't steal them. Unless you're Professor Hupy.