Rob_Haswell's Blog

Thanks to all of you who have commented on this blog, read this blog or blogged yourself!

It's so long for now here at myfoxmilwaukee.com BUT in VERY short order we'll be back up with an even better format at the all new fox6now.com!

If you want to keep ahead of the curve, become a member of my FACEBOOK Fan Site and I'll send out an update when the blogs are up!

Take care and blog you soon!

Ok so... it's been a chilly January and we had a brutal December. I know it's been a rough ride for us this winter but we are getting a break today.

A major winter storm will pass well south of our area today and hit many southern states with ice and snow.

Now for us that would be a pain. Perhaps we'd see some unfortunate accidents, some might go without power for a while but in general we'd deal with it and we'd move on.

That is not the case in the states that will be hit today. Those states just aren't used to crazy mix that winter can throw at you. Think about how badly we drive in our first snow each year and then expand that to think about how you'd drive in the ice or snow if you went years between having to drive in that kind of weather! Add to that the problem that most of these places simply don't have the infrastructure to deal with wintry conditions. How can a city that gets little or now snow in a given year justify a snow removal budget or a salt budget? Their idea of snow removal is to just wait a day until it melts.

Sadly, their inexperience and lack of resources will turn deadly in numerous ways. From traffic accidents to improperly heated homes we are going to hear some sad stories from the south central states today.

On the much lighter side, we'll have a hard time not giggling when we hear about schools closed due to an inch of snow or people stocking up on dry goods and bottled water to "ride out the storm"!

Some of those stories are already hitting the presses so to speak. Of course we'll have that here on myfoxmilwaukee and on Fox 6 but if you want to see some of the early reports just click below.


http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/250697/

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7013847981


http://www.wbko.com/news/headlines/38429484.html

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As the web team has told you, the company that provides the myfox blogs is ending and so will all our blogs.

BUT... trust me what is coming your way VERY soon is very very exciting and a big step forward.  That's all I can say for now.

However, if you want to be SURE to find my blog in the near future please join my Facebook Fan Site and I'll send out updates as the system changes over!

Just CLICK HERE

Well, perhaps I can't claim to have my finger on the pulse of the entire world but I do feel like I have a pretty good international network.

Of course most of my family lives in Canada but I also have friends and family all over the world. Such far away places as Norway, Zanzibar, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, Japan etc.

In recent days and weeks every single one of these far flung friends and family have chimed in with good feelings and kind wishes to the United States and our new leader. To be clear, they are not all the type who would have voted for President Obama given the chance but they all feel as if America is starting a new and exciting chapter in its history.

My very conservative African-born Father-in-Law said he was brought to tears by the President's speech and numerous others emailed me with the simple, three word cheer "Yes We Can!"

No matter what your political leanings, we all have to hope that these international (and national) feelings turn into results and we can turn the excitement and pageantry of yesterday into some real results for tomorrow! Obviously it can only help to have most, if not all, of the world cheering us on!


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Today's forecast for the Inauguration is 32 degrees with a chance of snow showers.

But what is the usual weather for inaugurations past?

Of course the fine folks at the National Weather Service have crunched the numbers and you can read all about it, including the conditions for many many presidents.... just CLICK HERE!

It's a very cool post from the NWS and I just had to share.

Watch this space later for some more number crunching from the year 2008 - a crazy weather year!





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Yes, this cold air must be taken seriously and you shouldn't go out at all if you don't have the proper clothing.  If you do go out, bundle up and just keep the kids and pets inside.

That being said, very cold air can be a bit of fun!

If you watched yesterday or this morning, you saw me having a little fun with the cold air by freezing a bottle of warm water and a soda can until they burst their packaging.  You likely also saw me turn boiling water into snow!

Well, I didn't the cold air did.  Here's how it works...

Snow forms when tiny water droplets (water vapor) freeze in the air.  To create this on a sub zero day you simply need to add water vapor to the air.  A cold, dry day also increases the rate at which water evaporates.

So just take a cup of hot, or boiling water, outside and toss it high in the air.  Most, or if you're luck all, of it will turn to snow and fog!

Be sure to use hot water. Hot water evaporates more quickly than cold water and throw the water as high as possible. That gives it more time to freeze as it falls. Don't use distilled water; because you need some impurities like in tape water (minerals, softener salt etc.) to form a center of nucleus around which ice or the snowflake can form.

Don't believe me?  Try it!  But you better try it fast, once we get much above 0 it won't work that well.

A viewer saw this Thursday and her coworkers didn't believe her either so they went out to the parking lot for proof and sent me this pic!



If you want to watch me do the same thing check out the AS SEEN ON WAKE UP PAGE

One of our talented sales staff here at FOX 6 just asked me the million dollar question on a week like this, "Can it be too cold to snow?!"

That one is second only to "Cold enough for ya?!" on a week like this.

The short answer to the first question is no.

The idea that it can be too cold to snow is a long standing weather myth.  Because snow requires moisture or more accurately, water vapor, it can be too dry to snow and typically very cold air is also very dry air which is likely where the myth comes from.

Also, typically when it's really cold we are under an area of high pressure and the atmosphere is very stable which again cuts the chance for snow in our area.

Just ask the folks in the UP or across the lake if it's too cold to snow!  "Lake Effect Snow" forms easily in those areas with cold air because as it blows across the waters of lakes Michigan and Superior, it picks up extra moisture from the lake water and quickly forms snow.  It's essentially a natural snow machine.

 
The type of snow also changes when it's really cold. Last night's snow was a very powdery snow light snow and tonight's snow will again be powder as it's formed with very little water content.

When it gets REALLY COLD like -40 (which it hasn't) the flakes are really more like ice crystals or as the Scandinavians sometimes call them Ice Needles!  Sounds pleasant huh?

Remember to stay bundled up and keep the kids and pets warm over the next few days!  Layer your clothing and only stay out for short periods of time.

Nicole and I chatted about this a bit yesterday but I thought I'd put the question to you...

Would you prefer sunny and cold or warmer and snowy?

Tomorrow it will be 30, slightly above average, but that comes along with 3-6" of snow.  Then on Saturday it will be just 14-18 degrees and sunny!

Despite the fact that I have to stand out in the cold on the weather deck, I would much prefer a cold but sunny forecast.

I prefer this partly because I, along with many others, suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder.  My hours make it much worse because I start my day at 3am and in the winter the sun isn't up until 7:30.  Then I nap between 1pm and 3pm so I miss much of the sunshine we do get!  The cure for "SAD" as it's known is simple... sunshine!  I use a full spectrum light to keep me in my happy-go-lucky mood for Wake Up and it works well but natural sunlight is so much better!

So, long story short, cold air can be hard to take but if that's the price for sunshine, I'd gladly pay it!  Or course we can also be cold and cloudy so that's the worst of both worlds! :-)

What about you?

If you're a regular reader of this blog or a regular viewer of Fox 6 Wake Up News then it will come as no surprise that I am not an athlete.  Despite trying every sport offered from first grade through Jr. High, I was never on a team  -  well o.k. I was on the Ping Pong team but that was a club and anyone could join!

I threw in the towel on athletics in high school and focused more on the arts.  Which is good really because it is the base of what I do for a living.  The downside is that passing any pure athleticism down to my kids via DNA isn't likely.  My father was a solid hockey player so I had hopes that maybe the sports gene could just skip a generation but there are no signs of that yet in my kids.  My son is like me.  He tries hard but has to put out double the effort for about half the return.

Noah is in hockey this year and really enjoys it and that's what counts.  But while many of the other kids fly around the ice and make the big plays, it just never really comes together for him out there in that same magical way.

That is until this Sunday when the sports gods smiled on the Haswell men and Noah scored his first game time goal!

It was as if the planets aligned for a moment and a play we'd practiced at home fell in his lap!  He prefers to call it a "trick" instead of a "play" because he likes the idea of pulling a fast one on the other team but the basics of the play ...er trick ... are to get yourself in front of the opposing teams goal, wait for the puck to get centered, get some lumber on it and bang it home!

So, there he was out front with a cluster of kids just off to the side all trying to get the puck.  Noah is rarely in that cluster fighting for possession but in this case it was a good thing.  The puck came loose right in front of him, he lined it up and fortunately got the shot off just in time to score!

It was a thing of beauty except some bozo in the rink kept screaming and waving his arms around!  Wait, that was me!  Hey, I couldn't help it, my kid scored his first goal!

So, after the game I treated him and the family to donuts and we called the Grandparents to brag - er, share the news!

No, I won't be booking seats for his first NHL game.  I'm not even sure he'll be playing in a couple of years but as a kid who rarely scored in a game myself it was great to watch my own personal "mini-me" net one and watch his self esteem and confidence soar - at least for a little while.  I suppose that is the beauty and the point behind youth sports at the end of the day.

January 2nd is indeed - as announced today on Wake Up - National Science Fiction Day!

I am a big fan of Sci-Fi.  As it turns out I am alone in that as far as this mornings Wake Up crew is concerned.

Sci-Fi is unfairly weighed down by some highly popular but not necessarily high quality movies, books and conventions.  I won't name names because it'll start a nerd war (LOL) but you know what I am getting at right?

However, if your thoughts of Sci-Fi begin and end with images of people dressed up as Klingons or Wookies, you are missing out.

I LOVE Star Trek and Star Wars - both are classics - but there is so much more to Sci-Fi than all that.

Some of the greatest novels of all time have been Science Fiction.  Among my fav's are Fahrenheit 451 (no there's no weather plot in this), Brave New World, The Time Machine and the Postman ( the book is SO much better than the movie).

Many of the greatest movies of all time are also Sci-Fi like Star Wars ( I prefer the first 3); 2001: A Space Odyssey; Back to the Future; The Matrix; Blade Runner; Planet of the Apes (just the first one); E.T.!!!

Of course at the end of the day it's a matter of taste and some folks just prefer a murder mystery or a love story and others would rather watch movies or read books about the past rather than the future.  I love movies, books and TV of all kinds but I must say there's a sweet spot for me in the Sci-Fi genre.

What about you?   Love it?  Hate it?  Comment.

As a meteorologist, I am fascinated by numbers. It's a pretty basic requirement for the job.

We crunch numbers all the time. We look at basic things like highs and lows, to the more complex pressure gradients to the downright complicated calculus that makes up the numerical forecast computer models we rely on everyday to help us make up the Fox 6-day forecast.

But the one number that everyone seems obsessed by - meteorologists, weather enthusiasts and average Joe's and Jane's alike - is the snowfall numbers!

I must get a half dozen calls a week and several dozen more when it snows, asking about how much snow fell.

Well, as a happy new years gift for me, the fine folks down the road at the National Weather Service in Sullivan has done the math and crunched the numbers for me!

Here's a select list of some December 2008 snow totals. For the full story from the NWS just CLICK HERE


Town     County     Snowfall

PADDOCK LAKE KENOSHA 33.8

BURLINGTON RACINE 31.5

EAST TROY WALWORTH 47.6

MITCHELL ARPT MILWAUKEE 35.3

TIMMERMAN ARPT MILWAUKEE 38.3

BROOKFIELD WAUKESHA 43.0

OCONOMOWOC WAUKESHA 42.4

CEDARBURG OZAUKEE 41.1

PORT WASHINGTON OZAUKEE 49.2

BELGIUM OZAUKEE 37.0

ALLENTON WASHINGTON 48.5

HOLY HILL WASHINGTON 50.7

JACKSON WASHINGTON 54.2

JEFFERSON JEFFERSON 35.4

FORT ATKINSON JEFFERSON 38.3

NWS SULLIVAN WI JEFFERSON 44.5

BEAVER DAM DODGE 45.6

HORICON DODGE 39.2

FOND DU LAC FOND DU LAC 44.6

TAYCHEEDAH FOND DU LAC 42.2

ELKHART LAKE SHEBOYGAN 58.6

SHEBOYGAN SHEBOYGAN 58.2

How much weather could a weather widget wedge if a weather widget could wedge weather?

Have you put the new Fox 6 weather widget on your site or blog yet?

It's pretty cool.

Just CLICK HERE

And then follow the directions.

On the big scale of Packers Fans with 10 being that guy who strips to a thong and paints his body green and gold and 1 being a fan who watches a game or two a season, I rank around 3 but I had to watch Sunday's game.

It hasn't been a great season but to end it with a loss to the Lions would have been some very undeserved shame.

Of course, you have to feel for the Lions. Having been on many a losing team, it hurts even when it's just a recreational league! I can't imagine how it feels to professional athletes who define themselves by their job and their performance.

So... what about you? Have you ever been on a losing team? I don't mean a team with a losing record, I mean a team that could get a win if they were handing them out on the street corner.

I played in a hockey team like that once. Strangely it was the year right after my team went to the championship game! It was certainly a reality check. You play far more games in a hockey season so we weren't winless like the Lions but it sure felt like it and after having come just one goal short of hoisting a championship trophy the year before it was a hard year.

Tell about your winning and losing teams!

On a day like today or yesterday, I get this one a lot: "Hey, what happened to global warming?!"

It is sort of hard to think about about and get your head around on a day with sub-zero temperatures and dangerous wind chills!

I won't even get started on the Global Warming Vs. the more accurate Global Climate Change but believe me when I tell you that as a planet we are still warming!

In fact, the combined global land and ocean surface temperatures for this past summer was the ninth warmest since records began in 1880. 

Add to that the fact that average temperatures for October were the second warmest since records began!

So even in this bitter bitter weather, as a planet, we are still trending toward warmer average temperatures.

Here's another great article that links the increase in severe weather to the increase in Earths temperatures.

CLICK HERE

 

If you remember last years cold snap you probably remember that I've made a bit of a tradition out of freezing things solid out there on the weather deck.

If you forgot you can watch it by CLICKING HERE

So, any ideas for new frozen favorites?  Tomorrow will be a sub-zero day so we'll make the most of it in true Wisconsin fashion.

Be watching!