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Life in the Frozen Tundra

I believe it was a broadcaster, Howard Cosell during a game on Monday Night Football that used the phrase "the frozen tundra' when referring to Lambeau field where our Green Bay Packers play their home games. Now the monicker is widely used to describe the area of northeastern Wisconsin. While it may do the job of depicting their weather for a couple of months a year the tundra is hardly frozen for most of the year and this year hardly at all.

 Full disclosure, since I live in Milwaukee not even Howard Cosell would say we are residents of the Frozen Tundra.

We are cautioned not to blame yearly weather events to climate change, it takes an average of many seasons to allow meaningful conjecture, this year reeks of change. We started the snow season with a modest but record snowfall in October only to be followed by unusual above-average temperatures in November, December and now even into January.

Low accumulations of snow fell in a number of valleys in the up and down fronts that alternately pulled cold then warm conditions through the area. The snowfall is still above average but little of it is on the ground because of the melt-off in-between. While the average high temperature for this time of year is twenty-nine degrees, the occurrence of days above forty degrees is routine.

The real weather hazards in Wisconsin are not large snowstorms. We can handle them. We have the equipment to deal with them and the expectation to plan for them. No, it's the early events that start out as rain which then freezes. If this is not followed by warm weather it can hang around for weeks. This weekend we may have one of those events. But like the well-known comment on Wisconsin weather, if we don't like the weather, just wait a minute it will probably change.

News about the News:
One of the major things I was forced to leave behind in the Fox River Valley when I moved to Milwaukee, is the theater column I wrote for Appleton Monthly Magazine. I'm happy to say my theater column will continue. It will feature Milwaukee theater and it will be published online at Urban Milwaukee.com. I'm proud to be working with Urban Milwaukee which is filling the nitch in the local news that is rapidly being abandon by the major print media in this city. My first column will be previewing Renaissance Theaters presentation of Happy Days, written by Samual Beckett and directed by Marie Kohler.





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