NewsChannel 8 Weather

Winter is just around the corner, and the National Weather Service is making the week of November 9 Winter Weather Awareness Week in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Winter Weather Awareness Day is November 12 in Iowa. This is a great time to make sure you’re ready for working and driving in winter conditions — snow, ice, sleet, and bitterly cold temperatures.

The Weather Service and the Farmers’ Almanac still have winter outlooks that seem to be 180 degrees apart. The most recent Weather Service Winter Outlook calls for above normal temperatures in the Upper Midwest. This outlook is based on El Nino conditions in the Pacific and the effects this usually  has on the Upper Midwest, including warmer than normal average winter temperatures.

The Farmers’ Almanac, on the other hand, calls for a chilly winter in the Upper Midwest. In fact, based on the secret formula used by the editor’s of the Almanac, this could be one of the colder winters to hit the region.

Regardless of who ends up being correct, winter in our region means you need to take some steps ahead of time to stay safe and comfortable. Along with making sure your house is properly insulated and drafts are sealed, this also is a good time to make sure your car is ready for winter.

While I check my car through the year, it’s especially important to make sure your car’s systems are working properly in winter. This includes making sure your headlights, turn signals and brake lights are all working — it can be difficult to see and be seen by other drivers when the snow is falling, especially during our long winter nights.

Getting stuck while driving in the winter is not only a headache, it also can be a potentially life-threatening situation. I carry basic safety equipment and tools in my trunk year-round. During winter, I add an old sleeping bag and a small suitcase with a few granola bars, a bottle of water (that I make sure isn’t frozen!), extra gloves, a wool hat, hand warmers, a down vest, and other small items that might come in handy if I get stuck with my car. A fully-charged cell phone is a great safety tool, too, but cell phone signals can be spotty, especially in rural areas.

If you break down on the road during winter, it’s a good idea to stay with your vehicle rather than trying to walk to safety, especially if you get stuck at night. Letting someone know your travel plans and route of travel will make it easier for you to be found if you don’t show up at your expected time of arrival. Also, if you take medication, carrying an emergency dose can help ensure that your problems stay automotive and don’t become medical.

Driving in winter weather conditions is never that enjoyable, but taking the time to prepare now — before the snow and ice hit — can pay big dividends down the road.

Central Standard Time returns to the Coulee Region Sunday morning, November 1, at 2AM. It used to be easy to remember when it was time to “fall back” an hour — it was the last Sunday in October. This all changed in 2007, when the Energy Policy Act of 2005 went into effect.

This act is part of a Department of Energy study about the energy savings that might result by staying on Daylight Saving Time longer. For the next several years, we’ll “fall back” an hour the first Sunday in November and “spring ahead” the second Sunday in March.

Of course, my mom in Tucson, Arizona, doesn’t have to worry about this — Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Saving Time (nor, for that matter, does Hawaii and the US territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands along with some Native American lands).

While adjusting our clocks in the fall and spring seems like a ritual that’s existed since the American Revolution, it’s actually a rather recent innovation. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin proposed adjusting clocks to take advantage of longer summer daylight back in the 1700s, but a national policy of turning clocks ahead an hour in the spring was first adopted by Congress during World War I. This 1918 law was repealed the next year, and Daylight Saving Time was left to local jurisdictions.

A national Daylight Saving Time was observed again during World War II. Once the war ended, though, the practice once again went back to local jurisdictions.

This all changed in 1966 with the passage of the Uniform Time Act. This act standardized the starting and ending dates for Daylight Saving Time, but made provisions for individual states to remain on standard time if their legislatures voted to do this (as was the case in Arizona and Hawaii). A 1972 amendment to this act allowed areas bordering two time zones within individual states to remain on standard time (such as in North and South Dakota, which are split by the Central and Mountain Time Zones).

Things remained pretty quiet on the time change front until 1986, when the start date to spring ahead to Daylight Saving Time was changed from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April.

While the history of time changes has changed with the times, the take home lesson is simple. Turn your clocks back an hour (fall back) either before you turn in this Saturday night or at 2AM Sunday morning (November 1), when we return to Central Standard Time in the region. You can rest easy until 2AM March 14, 2010 — when we “spring ahead” an hour back to Daylight Saving Time.

If you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of an unseasonably cool, wet October.

According to the Preliminary Monthly Climate Data compiled by National Weather Service for La Crosse, here’s where we stand:

Through October 14, our average temperature (found by averaging the high and low temperatures for every day) is 43.7 degrees Fahrenheit. This is almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit below normal! In fact, below normal high and low temperatures have been recorded every day this month at the La Crosse airport. Many areas even set new record low high temperatures. On Monday, October 12, Grand Meadow, Austin, Preston and Theilman, MN; Osage and New Hampton, IA; and Owen, Neillsville, Sparta and Hillsboro, WI, all set record low high temperatures as the afternoon mercury struggled to reach the mid-30s.

Of course, its been a wet month, too. This follows the fourth driest September ever recorded in Wisconsin, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As of October 14, 2.16 inches of liquid precipitation have been recorded at the La Crosse airport. This is more than an inch above normal for this period. In fact, we received more rain at the La Crosse airport the first week of October (1.87″) than during the entire month of September (1.02″)!

And don’t forget the snow we saw Monday, October 12! We picked up almost a half-inch of snow at the La Crosse airport, with more than an inch of snow measured at the National Weather Service office near Grandad Bluff. While it’s not uncommon to see our first trace of snow in October, we normally don’t see our first measurable snow in La Crosse until early to mid-November.

It looks like we’ll see some warmer temperatures starting this weekend, and we may even have seasonable temperatures back by Monday, October 19. Of course, as our recorded temperatures slowly climb, our average high and low temperatures are slowly falling as we head toward November.

What might this mean for the upcoming winter? The Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service still is forecasting a high probability for above normal temperatures for the Upper Midwest, with an equal chance for above or below normal precipitation. The Farmer’s Almanac, on the other hand, is sticking to their forecast for a chilly winter. Stay tuned!

The planet Saturn has a new ring.

To be honest, Saturn has had this ring for millions of years, but it was only just detected by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

Unlike Saturn’s easy-to-see rings that are composed of mostly rock and space debris and hug the planet, this new, super-ring is composed mainly of ice and dust. In fact, the ring would be almost impossble to see using a visible-light telescope since the small number of particles in the ring don’t reflect much visible light. As a result, it was only discovered using infrared imaging systems on the Spitzer Telescope.

Infrared imaging systems are used to detect heat, and were able to detect the faint glow of the temperature difference between the cool ice and dust in the ring and the much cooler temperatures in the vacuum of space. How cool is the ring? Try about -193 degrees Celsius (about -316 degrees Fahrenheit).

The ring is huge, with the bulk of the ring starting some six million kilometers (about 3.7 million miles) from Saturn’s surface. The ring extends outward another 12 million kilometers (about 7.4 million miles). According to NASA, it would take about one billion Earth’s stacked together to fill the monster ring. NASA speculates that Saturn’s moon, Phoebe, is likely the source of the ring’s material.

For more information about this new discovery, check out the NASA Web site: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/07oct_giantring.htm.

For more information about the Spitzer Space Telescope, check out: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/about/index.shtml.

I love a night with a full moon, especially a cool, crisp night when the greenish/white lunar glow gives everything a cold, ghostly look.

Our next full moon is this Sunday, October 4. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, Sunday’s full moon is called the Harvest Moon, and is the name given to the full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox. Since it takes roughly 30 days for the moon to go from a new moon to a full moon and back to a new moon, the Harvest full moon can occur in September as well as October. In fact, the Harvest full moon usually occurs in September rather than in October (about 66% of the time).

The name origin is pretty obvious — farmers could use the bright light from this full moon to work late into the night gathering the fall harvest.

And get set for December, when you’ll see two full moons — one on December 2 and the second on December 31. While the first December full moon will be the Full Cold Moon, the second full moon will be a Blue Moon. ”Blue Moon” is the general name given to the second full moon in one month or the fourth full moon in a season.