Are the Madison lakes ice-covered?

Posted on January 22, 2024 by WeatherGuys Editor

The Wisconsin State Climatology Office, housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, monitors and reports on the ice coverage of Madison lakes.

View of Lake Mendota on January 15, 2024 (Photo credit: The Edgewater Hotel)

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.

Ice coverage data for lakes Monona and Wingra are based on a general “50 percent covered” rule. The size and irregular shoreline of Lake Mendota make it challenging to observe, and so ice coverage is based on “whether one can row a boat between Picnic Point and Maple Bluff.” The lore is that in the early era, this rule was developed based on observers’ ability to bring a case of beer in a rowboat to friends on the other shore.

This year, without a rowboat, the observers determined that both Lake Mendota and Lake Monona froze over on Monday, Jan. 15. The recent cold air outbreak helped in covering the lakes with ice. Lake Wingra has frozen and thawed multiple times already this winter but has been frozen over consistently since Jan. 5.

This winter’s freeze-over date for lakes Mendota and Monona is the third-latest on record. Mendota froze over on Jan. 20, 2007, and Jan. 30, 1932. Monona froze over on Jan. 18, 2007, and January 30, 1932.

With the forecast of warmer weather this week, it will be interesting to see whether the lakes remain iced over.

And a big thank you to Ed Hopkins, Lyle Anderson and David Liebl, who annually brave our winter weather to assess ice conditions on the lakes.

Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month. Send them your questions at stevea@ssec.wisc.edu or jemarti1@wisc.edu.

Category: Climate, History, Seasons

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How is this winter stacking up historically?

Posted on January 15, 2024 by WeatherGuys Editor

 We are now a couple of days into what is easily the coldest air we have seen this entire winter.

Temperature anomalies today. (Image credit: University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer)

Until a week ago, complaints about the lack of snow were also justified in the southern part of the state. However, two recent snow events have even changed that situation so that, as of Monday, Madison suddenly is 7.3 inches ahead of normal for the snow season, which started July 1.

As far as temperature goes, through Wednesday we had averaged 5.85 degrees Fahrenheit above average per day since Nov. 1 — a remarkably extended period of above-average warmth.

Of course, we’re well below normal now and should be that way for much of the coming week.

The unusual warmth that has predominated has been a hemispheric phenomenon throughout the same period. As measured by considering the areal extent of air colder than 23 degrees at the 850 mb level, which is just about 1 mile above the surface, November was the 21st-warmest in the past 76 years, while December was the 11th-warmest in that same stretch.

Even though we are in the midst of a pretty intense cold wave right now, the first 10 days of January were the fifth-warmest such stretch in the past 76 years.

So, all in all we have had a pretty good run until this past weekend regarding the intensity of this winter. It is difficult, if not impossible, to say what will happen the rest of the way, though it is certainly the case that, at least climatologically, it is the next 20 or so days that we have to worry about most in terms of cold. Once we get past early February, and the day is noticeably longer, it is really difficult for any frigid air manufactured at high latitudes in Canada to make it all the way south to us without being strongly modified as it comes.

Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month. Send them your questions at stevea@ssec.wisc.edu or jemarti1@wisc.edu.

Category: History, Seasons

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Is there any difference between ‘partly cloudy’ and ‘partly sunny’?

Posted on January 8, 2024 by WeatherGuys Editor

The National Weather Service denotes sky condition using the portion of sky covered by opaque cloud cover.

Cloud cover is indicated by the shading of the centre of the station circle. The table below shows the meanings of the different symbols. (Image credit: MetLink, Royal Meteorological Society)

In meteorology, an okta is a unit of measurement used to describe the amount of cloud cover at a given location. Cloud conditions are estimated in terms of how many eighths of the sky are covered with opaque cloud, ranging from 0 oktas (completely clear sky) to 8 oktas (completely overcast). It does not include transparent clouds, such as thin cirrus.

Mostly clear or mostly sunny is reported for coverage from 1 to 3 oktas, while partly cloudy or partly sunny refers to cloud coverage of 3 to 5 oktas. Mostly cloudy is reported if 5 to 7 oktas of the sky are covered with opaque clouds. When the sky is obscured by fog, 9 oktas is reported for total sky cover, indicating it could not be observed.

Trained weather observers make these estimates, and while the cloud cover measurements are subjective, they still provide useful and scientifically valuable data.

So, partly cloudy is the same as partly sunny, with 3 to 5 oktas of opaque cloud cover. Of course, partly sunny cannot be used in reporting nighttime conditions.

At any particular observation time, there may be different types of clouds at different heights above the ground. In such situations the total cloud amount is reported and defined as the fraction of the sky covered by any type of opaque cloud. Weather reports also will include the fraction of the sky covered by each type or layer of cloud as if it was the only type or layer of cloud in the sky.

Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month. Send them your questions at stevea@ssec.wisc.edu or jemarti1@wisc.edu.

Category: Meteorology

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What were the weather highlights of 2023?

Posted on January 2, 2024 by WeatherGuys Editor

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.

Daily temperature graph for 2023 (Image credit: Wisconsin State Climatology Office)

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.

We experienced heavy rain on Feb. 27. Both Milwaukee and Madison recorded more precipitation on that day (2.06 inches and 1.56 inches, respectively) than normally falls there during the entire month of February. That heavy rain contributed to the winter of 2022-23 being Wisconsin’s wettest meteorological winter (December through February) on record (since 1895). The winter also was warm overall, highlighted by a lack of temperatures at or below 0 degrees.

March was snowy. Total snowfall for the month exceeded normal conditions throughout Wisconsin. Madison recorded its snowiest day of the month on March 25, with 12.1 inches of snow, making it the snowiest March in Madison since 1959.

April was an interesting month. Temperatures for the state averaged 8 degrees warmer than normal from April 1 to April 15 and then were 8 degrees colder than normal from April 16 to April 30. Eau Claire, Wausau, Green Bay, La Crosse and Madison all had four straight days of 80 degrees or warmer in early April.

Our meteorological summer in 2023 was the fifth-driest summer on record (since 1895). An intense heat wave hit in August, peaking from Aug. 22 to Aug. 24. Temperatures reached more than 100 degrees in many areas across the state.

Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month. Send them your questions at stevea@ssec.wisc.edu or jemarti1@wisc.edu.

Category: Climate, History, Meteorology

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What happens on the winter solstice?

Posted on December 26, 2023 by WeatherGuys Editor
The winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, which is located at 23.5° south of the equator and runs through Australia, Chile, southern Brazil, and northern South Africa. (Image credit: NOAA/National Weather Service)

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.

The December solstice marks the longest night and shortest daylight of the year for those living in the Northern Hemisphere. For the Southern Hemisphere, it marks the shortest night and longest daylight. Although daylight hours increase during the winter months, temperatures continue to fall because Earth cools down and heats up slowly. The overall energy balance is still negative, with more heat lost at night than is regained during the daytime.

Meteorologists mark the start of our Northern Hemisphere winter as Dec. 1, with winter covering the three months of December, January, and February. These are the coldest months of the year. This means the time when daylight gets longer occurs during the Northern Hemisphere meteorological winter. Slowly at first, but at increasing daily intervals, as spring approaches.

For the Southern Hemisphere, meteorological winter covers the months of June, July, and August. For the Southern Hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs around June 21.

A day is not just the period of daylight. A day defined relative to the sun is called a solar day; it is the time from one local noon to the next. A sundial, correctly orientated, will indicate the precise moment of local solar noon, when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky each day. The longest solar days, as measured from one solar noon to the next, occur each year around the December solstice, no matter where you live.

Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month. Send them your questions at stevea@ssec.wisc.edu or jemarti1@wisc.edu.

Category: Climate, Meteorology, Seasons

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