Wednesday June 23rd, 2010

We are still here..

..But running on generator power.

11pm-

The storm came through at about 6pm here. It brought heavy rains, strong winds and swirling clouds. It was not destructive in my immediate domain, but it obviously took down trees and power lines. We just crossed into hour 4 of the power being out, and judging by how many people are out, it might be a while.

WPS is reporting over 18,000 people out of power, with over 13,000 in either the Wausaukee or Wabeno grids. Crivitz (54104) was 92% out, but are up 30% in the very recent past.  Lakewood (54138) remains 97% dark, and here in 54104 they are again making progress with 57% out. I have huge respect for the WPS line crews around here, and they are obviously bouncing back quickly again tonight.

The news said that Crivitz is under a curfew tonight with only emergency responders to be out. They need to sign in at the Crivitz FD. They have trees and lines down, and roads closed as a result.

While this storm was a little spooky, it did not do widespread damage other than trees and power lines that I know of. I sustained no damage here.

The video below came out a little disappointing. You really can’t see the clouds quickly rising and the cold air spilling off of the front of the cloud. We did get the tube cloud, and about 1:10 into the video it starts swirling. You can hear in the audio why I eventually was sent running for cover.

There were a couple of times during the heavy stuff that I wanted to get footage of the trees rocking and the heavy rain, but an open window was a bucket of water in the face, so no.

I would estimate our rainfall in the 1-2″ range. Areas north, like the Peshtigo River watershed saw very heavy rain (1-3″). There will be some rafting this weekend. There was also some localized flooding, not so fun for some people.

Once the TV news buddies get on scene in the morning and I get a better chance to look around I will update on the storm. Right now it mostly sounds like trees and power lines down.

If I find a lot of damage I will again volunteer to check on people’s places. My bet right now is that it won’t be needed. I don’t think it is as bad as it sounds. The dawn will tell.

I will be back as soon as I have some info, probably late morning unless somw news breaks in the meantime.

RJB

9:50pm

Here is a a YouTube video of some of the mean looking clouds coming in. Look for the tube cloud to fold and start swirling on the center left about a minute in.

Check out the other vids on my YouTube channel..http://www.youtube.com/Riversportdigital

9:30pm

The Village of Crivitz is now under curfew. Only emergency personnel are allowed out due to village wide power outages, closed roads, downed trees,  and downed power lines.

I am working on a Youtube vid of the clouds coming in and swirling. It should be up in a few minuutes.

9pm

Between the Wausaukee and Wabeno grids WPS reports 87 outages for 13,623 customers in the dark in those two districts, and almost 19,000 total out. The news said that there were a lot of trees down in Crivitz. It sounds like the line crews are in for a full night.

7pm

We had a line of storms come through a little while ago that was pretty ugly. We had tornado warnings, and the conditions were right for it. I am not sure if the video of the incoming wall cloud turned out, I will check in a little while.

Anyway the storm came through with ugly rotating clouds, some good wind gusts, and some really heavy rains. It was interesting for a while but it was not a tornado.

More soon..

RJB