Pretty picture

Pretty, pretty map that shows the obvious
difference between "warm" and "cool" hues. Note
these are current temperatures, 1 p.m.

This is our current temperature map. Note the pretty colors - a rainbow of varied temperatures! See the nice seventy-two hovering over Milwaukee. Then look out the window and see all the dark clouds piled up in the northern sky, a harbinger of the storms on the leading edge of the cold front.

Those storms have already leveled barns and generated wind gusts up to about fifty miles an hour. Not tornadoes - straight line winds. All this is heading our way.

Naturally, it's scheduled to reach us around three p.m. - just before I head out to vote early. I'm not sure which is worse - standing in a long line on election day, or standing in a short line tonight while soaked to the skin from the rain (umbrella? Who needs an umbrella? And with those kinds of winds, it would be useless).

The meteorologists at the station above are beside themselves with glee. They use a forecasting tool - a very accurate one - that looks at the weather pattern that sets up in October through early November. That pattern repeats at regular intervals of 45 - 52 days throughout the winter, spring and most of the summer. So far, by my count, this is the third dramatic overnight shift in temperatures during this pattern-setting period. Each shift has been accompanied by storms, some worse than others.

It may well be a long, wet winter.