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Category Archives: Climate
You thought Wisconsin’s winter was warm? Wait till summer
Changes in the weather patterns that brought record-breaking warm temperatures to the Madison area this winter might also mean that a warmer-than-usual summer lies ahead.
There’s a fair chance that temperatures could rise above normal in June, July and August, and even into early fall, climate scientists say. Continue reading
How did this mild winter compare to previous such years?
We are now past the end of the meteorological winter, which consists of the months of December, January and February.
This season has been a remarkably mild one for most of its duration. With the exception of a week of desperate cold in mid-January, there was hardly any cold air to speak of in southern Wisconsin all winter. In fact, Madison was 9.5 degrees above normal for December, 3.5 degrees above normal for January (reduced because of the cold snap Jan. 14-21, during which the temperature was 14 degrees below normal!) and 11 degrees above normal for February. Continue reading
Are the Madison lakes ice-covered?
The Wisconsin State Climatology Office, housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, monitors and reports on the ice coverage of Madison lakes.
The office keeps a database of the ice-over and ice-out dates for three Madison-area lakes: Mendota, Monona and Wingra. These records extend back to the winters of 1855-1856 for Mendota and Monona. The record of annual ice cover of Wingra is spotty, but consistent starting in the winter of 1982-83. Due to the long record based on visual observations, it is no surprise that the rules of opening and closing have been handed down by oral tradition. Continue reading
What were the weather highlights of 2023?
As we begin a new year, let’s look back on the weather of 2023. The most recent, and odd, weather event of the year was the warm temperature on Christmas Day, with a high of 54 degrees in Madison. That was only the seventh time since 1869 that the maximum temperature exceeded 50 degrees on Christmas.
The state received less than one-third of its usual precipitation in November. The statewide average temperature for the meteorological autumn (September, October and November) was 2.5 degrees above normal, which made it the eighth-warmest autumn on record. In October, the 4.14 inches of statewide average precipitation was 1.13 inches above the 1991-2020 normal. This helped to alleviate our drought conditions. Continue reading
What happens on the winter solstice?
Astronomical winter begins at the winter solstice, which happened this year for the Northern Hemisphere at 9:27 p.m. Central Standard Time on Thursday, Dec. 21. Winter south of the equator begins in June.
The Northern Hemisphere winter solstice occurs at the time the sun is at its southernmost point in the sky. At this time, the sun is overhead at noon on the Tropic of Capricorn, approximately 23.4 degrees south of the equator. Continue reading
