Greetings and welcome!
The tornado Friday night near Wausaukee starts my report this morning.
Friday night at 4:45pm an EF1 tornado touched down by Long Lake, which is about a mile or two northwest of Wausaukee. It headed southeast and crossed Highway 141 just north of the Wausaukee High school.
There it did extensive damage to Buck’s Recycling and the house across the road. The recycling place lost a roof, had trucks tipped over and wrecked, and a lot of trees down. The house across the road lost a garage, most of the shingles on the house, and a lot of trees.
The tornado continued southeast, passing just north and east of town. It came across 180 near where it hits the river and ran along the south side of the highway for a while. It continued southeast until it hit the Menominee River.
There was one fatality, a 43 year old man who died when his mobile home was tipped over and flattened.
The tornado path was fairly narrow, running between 125 and 250 yards wide. The NWS says that it was an EF-1, with winds estimated at 100-105mph, a path of 7.8 miles, and a time of about 15 minutes.
There was some damage outside of the tornado zone as well. Heading east from Athelstane on C the damage started showing up just east of Morgan Lake, where a house down the hill lost some trees. Heading east there were a few trees down and a Wausaukee lumber sign was damaged. The cornfield by the RR tracks coming into town was laid down a little.
Heading east on 180 there was a tree down on the north side of the road about a half mile east of 141, and then not much until you got a few miles out by Elias Auto Value. From there damage became more apparent as I went, with trees down here and there on both sides of the road.
As I progressed I could see where it ran along the road on the south side taking down trees. In this picture it damaged a bunch of big white pines by the Lamer’s Bus Terminal. You can’t see it, but behind the brush on the left there was a guy loading logs onto a log hauling semi truck with a grapple. They were big trees.
From there the tornado path and the road parted as the road went east and the tornado path went southeast. The world famous Bear Point Yacht Club had a tree down, but no other visible damage. The main damage path started being visible from Hwy 180 about a mile and a half west of there.
The news showed that Governor Scott Walker came out to see the damage and talk to the family that lost the victim. It does not look like the tornado will qualify for federal disaster aid, but the state might be able to lend a hand.
The County Sheriff was very delicate about not minimizing the impact on the victims while making the point that it could have been a lot worse. The tornado passed within a half mile of the high school, and not too far from the county fair grounds. Had the tornado been a little bigger and timed right with kids in school, or come through while thousands were at the fair, we would be looking at a much bigger and deadlier disaster. Even though it could have been worse, the damage is very real for a lot of people and very tragic for one family.
At one point power was out to about 2,000 people, but the WPS line crews worked overtime most of the night and got thing powered back up quickly. Most people had power the next morning.
The news said that the village tornado sirens did not go off, since a tornado warning was not issued. Unless I missed something Friday, we were not expecting severe weather, and were not under a tornado watch. It was a freak storm that blew up unexpectedly.
Here is a link to the NWS page that reports on the tornado and offers up a path map and radar and satellite images.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb/?n=110819_tornado
More weather news.. We had a cold night Sunday night when the low temp went down to 44 degrees. It was an ugly reminder that I have NO firewood cut and that I might want to get on that sooner than later.
The weather today again looks interesting, and we again have a chance of severe weather. We have two different precip areas affecting the state this morning. The southern set of storms will hit mostly the southern half of WI. Those have a pretty strong start, and could go severe as the day heats up.
The northern set of storms is weakening at the moment but could fire back up later. That is more in question. I have seen models where it went through as not much, and one that showed it becoming very strong. Keep an eye on the sky today.
At the moment the next mention of precip after that is for Sunday night. That comes with a note of caution though, there could be some rain about Friday depending on how things play out.
Beyond that the weekend looks nice with sunny or partly cloudy skies and mid to upper 70s for high temps. Lows in the 50s should make sleeping comfortable.
I think that I was right that the heat of summer has broken. We are going to get a taste tomorrow when it gets up close to 90, but beyond that it looks like our high temps will be mostly in the 70s. August days in the 70s? Don’t wait for me to complain about that.
As I was doing my errands yesterday it was a lot of miles and a lot of wildlife sightings to go along with them. It started in my driveway where driving out spooked a pair of sandhill cranes in the bushes.
Th rest of them I wasn’t quick enough on the camera to catch. There was a fox at the bottom of Fox Hill. There were three different sightings of pairs of turkeys herding along a dozen or so of their young. I know that I am still missing one.
Sunday I was walking in the woods and kicked up an owl that I got to see glide silently 100 yards or so through the woods.
We have a few events this weekend. Both the Marinette County and Oconto County Fair are this weekend. The Marinette Co fair is at the fairgrounds on the north end of Wausaukee. The Oconto Co fair is down in Gillett.
Driving by yesterday the sign in Wausaukee said that the rides open Thursday. That is true, so does the rest of the fair.
There is also live music at the Rapids Resort this weekend with Galaxie & Fritz. I met them a few weeks ago when they were in Rapids verifying stuff, and they were nice guys. One plays guitar and one plays harmonica. It should be interesting.
| Aug. 25 – 28 |
Marinette County Fairgrounds
Wausaukee |
Marinette County Fair
Demoliton derbies, truck and tractor pulls, animal judging, exhibits, bands, family entertainment and carnival |
| Aug. 25 – 28 |
Zippel Park
Gillett |
Oconto County Fair
Demoliton derbies, horse, truck and tractor pulls, animal judging, exhibits, bands, family entertainment and carnival |
| August 27 |
Rapids Resort
Hwy C – Silver Cliff |
Live Music
Band – Galaxie Fritz |
In my spare time when I am not a mechanic, a computer tech, a networking guy, or a photographer, I also write web sites. I have a cool one to introduce today for a fishing gadget made by a guy from Crivitz.
It is called Dick’s Handy Fishing Hook Holder. It looks like a ball point pen, but there is not a pen tube inside. Instead, when you push the button a brass loop comes out.
It is spring loaded, and when released it holds your fishing hook firmly so that you can tie a line into it. He also mentioned that people were buying them to hold stick pins to do insect taxidermy like butterfly collections, and that they work great for the tiny ice fishing jigs when your hands are cold and wet.
The new web site is at www.hookholder.net. You can buy the hook holder right on line, at Hook Line & Sinker in Crivitz, at Pintch’s Hardware in Townsend, and other state bait shops.
On a personal note I want to brag a little bout my Big Brother Bob. (Yes on the haircut & real job..) He has been a bicycle riding mad man since high school. Lately he has been into something called randoneering. Over the past year he has been doing qualifying races to get to go to the big race in France.
Today he is in Brest France. He rode there from Paris as part of the Paris-Brest-Paris Endurance Race. He has 90 hours to ride 762 miles. On a bicycle. He has made it halfway and is on the way back as I type this. So far he has averaged about 15Km/hr including stops, and is ahead of where he needs to be.
I know that he worked really hard for this and it is the result of decades of riding at a high level. I am very proud of my Big Brother Bob right now.
Well I have to get back to work now. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!
RJB