Gandle, I could easily become a Wisconsin forecaster by parroting a slightly less serious average of what's happening in ND and NE, and saying it's going to happen here a day or two later. Oh, and every statewide forecast is always finished by the words "and cooler near the Great Lakes." So as long as I rehashed your and my parents' weather and followed by "and cooler near the Great Lakes." I could skip that whole Doppler 10,000 TV station hype crap.

I promise you ND is every bit as windy as NE, if not more. It's just what happens when there's no hills or trees to stop anything... and those stupid Alberta clippers are constantly crossing the border without proper documentation! ND is seeing a lot of wind energy harnessing equipment going up there too... These wind resource maps paint a really interesting picture of the potential of the two states: {{gwi:139403}}, {{gwi:139404}}

On the bright side, I've been enjoying my crocuses which are flowering their fool heads off... er, the indoor ones anyway! The outdoor ones are still sleeping under a couple feet of the white stuff...

I can usually look at Chicago's weather, add three days (Chicago on Monday is us on Thursday) and modify the temps, and be pretty close to right. Have to allow that NW storms often get hung up on the Appalachians and never make it east over those bumps; and that hurricances and blizzards which come up the coast from the south or southwest WILL hit us. Northeasterly storms don't faze us, but mention "from the south" and we prepare for serious weather.

geez, you mean your weather men have to be right a percentage of the time??!
ours dont have such strict qualitfications, apparently, because they are never right. if they tell you it will be fairly mild any given week of , oh say, middle of january till the end of march, you better have those snow shovels ready.
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This one tickles my funny bone. My husband will have the weather station playing on the tube and at the very same time I'll have my weather site up on the inet, and the two forecasts can be totally different, especially where precipitation are concerned. We seem to live in an area where the terrain changes considerably from that direction where the fronts normally sweep in. A county above us or to the left of us can be in a crisis snow or ice emergency and we look out the window at a gentle rain with the temps hovering just above freezing. Or vice versa.

I remember a couple years ago going west to the next county to get our accounting done in late winter. There was this magic line not ten miles from our house starting at a state park, when we all the sudden encountered massive trees keeled over from a hideous ice storm we never received and large areas of ice from flooding. It was massive destruction and our accountant told us of being homebound over Christmas with no power for days. We were totally oblivious to the whole episode. It missed us entirely.

DH calls The Weather Channel MTV for the over-50 set & we affectionately call it "The Blue Channel" here. Today we're under a winter storm warning - rain turning to ice with snow north of here. It's the kind of storm that weather guys live for.

We can usually count on Dallas' weather hitting us about 3-4 hours after it hits Dallas, but with ice, we usually hope that being about 35 miles south of I-30 saves us from the worst of the nasty winter weather (at least that's what we're hoping for today).

I've said for years that the easiest job is being a weatherperson in Texas in the summer. From mid-June to mid-September you could just say "Sunny & unbearably hot" day after day after day.

All I can say is if the cold snap doesn't unsnap pretty soon I am going to snap. And my mother is housebound except for me stopping over and trying to get her out for groceries or a meal, but there is so much ice I worry about her falling. I am afraid what I will find when I stop in after work, her snickering like Peter Lorre and hiding behind the curtains with a butcher knife in her hand.

Yeah, tibs and I see we have another winter storm warning hanging over our heads. It's getting old.

Oh yeah, we are sending you this monster that has been dumping snow on us for the last week. Only good thing about it is the winds are light so it isn't drifting badly and no white out conditions. Not much moisture in the snow so it is easy to move, rather chilly though high today of 7 low expected to be 12 below tonight. Just normal winter weather on the high plains.

Geesh, thanks for sharing, Gandle. What surprised me, is that we were issued this warning over 48 hours in advance. That sort of hinted of maybe it could be a large front. I have been counting down the days until Groundhog Day. One week. O-N-E W-E-E-K.

All nature's creatures seemed to be forecasting a long, cold winter and it's come to past, but they are also suggesting that spring may be early this year. I am seeing the finches yellowing up. The male mockingbird is already staking out his territory. Starlings are becoming common. The squirrels outside our kitchen window are 'courting'.

I have been on the lookout for owls, as they start mating in January. So far, they've been hanging low.

Gee thanks Gandle. Unfortunately by the time your snow hits the midwest it's going to be ice.

Right now the weather-guessers sing: Oh, what beautiful mild sunshine, what wonderful blue skies! Don't worry, no rain in sight, go out and enjoy the days ahead, many days like this ahead.
The reality is grim - mandatory water rationing is on the horizon. Check out the link. It may be fun to gallop your horse on what used to be deep water, but the ramification aren't all that great.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Lake Mendocino mud-puddle