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Visibility now around 1/4 mile in Madison. Edit: Camp Randall Stadium no longer visible from 14th floor of AOS building (stadium is about 3-4 blocks away)

Now snowing in Madison...convective snow about 1-2 hours away!!!

I don't see any sleet at all. All snow. New models are confirming that everything is in place. 8-12" across all of southern WI Grand Island, Nebraska reported Thundersnow last hour.

Looks like the main snow band has developed across Iowa and is slowly pushing northward. I would definitely expect convective snow if it maintains its strength. However, it is still several hours away--maybe to the WI/IL border by 10 PM.

I have a suspicion that CC was seriously considering taking the Brewers $100 million offer despite it being $40 million short, which forced the Yankees to add another year and $20 million. It seems kind of strange that a player would willingly take $40 million less to play in a city like Milwaukee, but I really think it might have been the case. He would have had the chance to replace Brett Favre as the state's most recognizable athlete. He would have been extremely popular, with much less pressure to succeed. However, as others have mentioned, the out clause in addition to the money made the choice easy.

Latest forecast is for about 8-10" in the Milwaukee and Madison areas, with up to a foot near the Illinois border. This is a fast moving storm, so it's really going to come down once it starts. Most of the snow will fall in a 12-hour period from midnight tonight to noon Friday.

Honestly, the NWS website is quite a disaster until you know where to find things, which is kind of sad since it has such a wealth of weather information. The Milwaukee/Sullivan one is one of the better organized ones in my opinion. They really should just have "Bring it on!" in bold text at the top of the website. Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Malibu, Houston, and New Orleans have all gotten snow recently, but it's time for Wisconsin to show the nation what a real snowstorm is! (Clearly, I'm getting way too excited about this)

Latest forecast discussion, last line: CONSIDERING AMOUNT OF SYNOPTIC SCALE FORCING AND MOISTURE AVAILABLE...18Z NAM QPF WAS CONSIDERED TOO LOW COMPARED TO MORE CONSISTENT AND PREFERRED GFS FOR UPCOMING EVENT. NEW 00Z HAS NOW COME MORE IN LINE WITH 18Z GFS WITH 288 7H LOW PRESSURE PASSING THROUGH SRN WI AND QPF AROUND 1.0 LATER THU NGT INTO FRI MRNG. THIS PLACES NRN TWO THIRDS OF CWA IN FAVORABLE LOCATION FOR HEAVIEST SNOW. LOW LEVEL CRITICAL THICKNESSES FROM NAM HINTING AT SOME SLEET AT IL BORDER WITH ALL SNOW FARTHER NORTH. CONTINUE TO SEE SIGNATURE OF COUPLED JET AT 12Z OVER SRN WI. CONSIDERING BAROCLINIC RIBBON ACROSS NRN IL INTO SRN WI...SURPRISED THERE IS NOT MORE RESPONSE TO 2-D FULL WIND FRONTOGENESIS AT MID LEVELS FROM NAM. STRONG OMEGA IN FAVORABLE DENDRITE GROWTH ZONE WITH 3 TO 4 GRAMS MIXING RATIO ON 290 THETA SURFACE WITH STRONG ISENTROPIC OMEGA. IN OTHER WORDS...NO CHANGES WITH WINTER STORM WARNING. BRING IT ON. [/pre]

After looking at the latest model runs, I'm now 99% sure that all of Southern Wisconsin is going to get nailed on Thursday night. In addition, the Saturday night/Sunday storm won't bring nearly as much snow as the first one, but will crank the winds up so that blizzard conditions appear likely. A third storm will hit Tuesday/Wednesday. Then a big arctic blast for Christmas day. As the National Weather Service puts it: BRING IT ON!!!!

From what I can tell, it doesn't get going in the Madison area until after 7 PM. However, as seen by the last big storm, the timing can easily get moved 6 hours in either direction. Once it starts it's going to get going fairly quickly. For what it's worth, the latest model has this thing going noticeably farther south, which would move the heaviest totals to right along the WI/IL border, with totals more in the 4-8" range north of I-94. So we still could get spared.

Early indications are for 6-14" of snow on Thursday night (lowest amounts near Illinois border). Thundersnow is possible--but it's so difficult to predict. It's still a little early with this one, but it will probably be either a major snowstorm or a major ice storm. Also, another 6"+ storm is looking like a strong possibility for the weekend. Then an arctic blast just in time for Christmas. Happy winter!

Winter weather advisory for tomorrow...3-5" of very fluffy snow starting in the afternoon. Thursday's system is going to be more significant--someone is going to get nailed again--but precip type is still a question.

Just wait, it's not done yet. After subzero temperatures tonight and snow on Tuesday, it looks like the Thursday storm might be almost all rain for southern Wisconsin--and then right back to cold after that.

I would laugh, but I happened to be watching a highway bridge cam of Houston, TX the other night when it was snowing...there was one lane of cars that were just pulled over, another of them going about 5 mph, and then a third group that was going along at about 40-50 mph like nothing was happening (looked like moderate snow at the time). Better just to keep people off the roads in situations like that--even many people in WI have bad driving instincts--turning the wheel the wrong way when fishtailing, slamming on the breaks when they start sliding, etc. Still, I can only imagine what it looks like to a Wisconsinite to see a city panic over an inch of snow. As for this cold front, Madison has now going from 43 F to 15 F in 6 hours...quite impressive. However, Kansas City wins--60 F to 31 F in ONE hour and now 60 F to 8 F in 12 hours.

Personally, I think it was a great comment. This is the most publicity the NHL has gotten the entire season.

I agree and I think it's in the plans. For some reason, these guys are kind of being ignored at the moment, and I think it's a great idea to jump on it and get at least one of them--maybe more. I would take a rotation with Johnson and Smoltz despite their age--and I have no doubt that either could serve as a decent closer as well. They are also household names and future hall of famers, which is huge for public relations with the loss of CC. Furthermore, they will fill the gap for a few years during the recession while other teams overspend and lose significant amounts of money. Mark A. knows exactly what he is doing. The Brewers are putting themselves in a situation to be a major player in 2-3 years when they will be able to combine the next "wave" of prospects (Gamel/Escobar) with retained long term contracts from the first group (Braun, Hardy/Hart/Weeks possibly), acquired trade acquisitions from Fielder and whoever else gets traded, and free agent pickups which will be much cheaper after baseball plays for a full season in a down economic year. This isn't a salary dump, it is a delayed reloading due to the economic situation.

I'm fine with all warming trends that do not involve tornadoes.

I'm in the "there's way too much panicking going on" group. There's no doubt that the Brewers would not have made the playoffs without Sheets and Sabathia, but it's not like they are suddenly a 70 win team without them. I expect they will make a few moves and be right back in it in 2009. Where are the other big signings in the NL Central? What have the Cubs done? The Astros? The Cardinals? The Reds? Our players gained a key year of experience and we have more prospects ready to come up to the majors. There really isn't anything to be concerned about. We could easily be in the same situation in 2009 at mid-season (slightly over .500) and make another move to get over the top. Just be glad CC went to the AL and not another NL team.

I'm not surprised at all about this...maybe a little disappointed, but I always considered him to be a rental player and as soon as the Yankees offered $140 mil I knew he was gone. He will remain one of the best mid-season trade pickups of all time. He ended our playoff drought. We had more exciting moments in a 2 week timeframe than we had in the previous 5-10 years combined. I don't see how the Yankees can afford this...but I wonder if the Yankees upped their offer because CC was considering taking the Brewers offer instead even if it was quite a bit less. There does not seem to be any other logical explanation of why they would throw on an extra $20 million for no reason. The deal will most certainly fail, and this time it will actually hurt the Yankees because of the economic situation. I heard they were already having problems selling their luxury suites...and I have no doubt that if they have another year without a playoff appearance, there will be empty seats like there were in the early 1990s. The Rays and Red Sox are winning with player development and timely free agent acquisitions, while the Yankees' money advantage continues to lead them nowhere. Same goes for the Mets--Santana got them 1 extra win compared to 2007 and they choked again despite having a new manager. I hope CC does well, but to think that he will be successful like he was with the Brewers is crazy. The AL East has better hitters who have seen him before. He's only going to get older. He had an ERA of 10 last April, what if he gets off to a start like that again? He'll be getting booed within a month if he does, while he would have been a hero forever in Milwaukee if he stayed.

In my opinion, the whole canceling school thing is kind of ridiculous. As much as people complain, I like the UW-Madison way of doing it--if the buses can run, they're open. Everyone complains, but when class starts, 95% of people show up. The only argument I can see is extreme cold where children are in danger of getting frostbite while they are waiting for the bus. However, it's gotten to the point where classes will eventually get canceled for extreme heat because someone might get head exhaustion or something. By the way, the high should be 40-45 F on Sunday with rain showers, but temperatures will cool off after that with an active pattern setting up that is similar to last winter. Look for plenty of chances for snow and an almost guaranteed white Christmas.

Round 1 is now over in Madison. Maybe 1-3" but I can't really tell looking down from the 14th floor of the AOS building. That is on top of maybe 1/8" of ice. More precip is developing in eastern Iowa which should bring another 1-3" starting in a few hours. A big band of snow will form after that with the surface low and will likely be heaviest from maybe 5 AM-early afternoon.

Oh, this one is almost guaranteed to be a disappointment. Freezing rain is a big issue in the south, but in Wisconsin we have the resources to dump salt on everything and make it a non-issue for the most part. Also, the advance warning makes everyone prepared, so even if it was a big storm, everyone would be expecting it anyway. Secondly, these type of storms are guaranteed to not turn out the way the forecast models predict, there just isn't any way to perfectly nail down the rain/snow line. Everyone ends up with something different than what was predicted...and it really looks like the Milwaukee/Madison areas are going to lose out to La Crosse and Green Bay in terms of snowfall totals. 10 inches in Madison seems far fetched at this point (and of course the media always jumps on the high end of the predictions when 5 inches is just as likely as 10). However...the precip band extends all the way back into western Nebraska and the surface low will bring all snow tomorrow morning, so it's not like we're going to get nothing at all like the last storm, when Madison got 1.5" on a prediction of 6-10" Edit: I took a look at a few more forecast models and I really think it will be very nasty tomorrow morning with heavy snow across the entire Southern 1/2 of Wisconsin.

This evening is a tough call. Looking at the radar, there is light precip that will be moving in this afternoon. The question is what type of precip will it be, but I-94 is going to be right on the line initially so I don't really know at this point. If its freezing rain, things could get really nasty in a short time period. I would recommend against it based on the rick of ice, but the heavier precip should get going sometime in the late evening.

Thundersnow unlikely for this event. The storm has decent frontal and jet forcing, but this one is characterized mostly by plentiful moisture availability. The high forecast accumulations are more due to the long duration than from brief bursts of heavy snow.

Wausau and Stevens Point were just added to the Winter Storm Watch. I would expect snow anywhere from Monday night all the way through Tuesday evening. The Tuesday morning commute might be worse than the Tuesday afternoon in that region.