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Weather wallops southern Wisconsin

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First Snowstorm of 2009

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JANESVILLE — It’s winter in Wisconsin, but make no mistake: This snowstorm was not normal.

Southern Wisconsin is in the midst of a rare, two-stage, triple-whammy weather event.

In his 11 years overseeing Janesville plow crews, operations director John Whitcomb said it’s been this bad only one other time. That was Feb. 5-6, 2008, the storm that turned Interstate 90/39 into a parking lot.

“It’s just the worst of everything,” Whitcomb said.

Three factors make this bad, Whitcomb said:

-- Duration. The snow kept falling without letup, sometimes at a rate of 1 inch or more per hour. Janesville crews worked straight through Tuesday and Wednesday and could not keep up. Imagine a thunderstorm in which snow falls, which was exactly what happened, with thunder and lighting Tuesday night.

“We’ve really pushed the envelope on this one with our human resources,” Whitcomb said

-- Wet, packy, heavy snow. Whitcomb said crews worked as fast as they could to get the snow plowed before the cold moved in Wednesday afternoon. Anything that wasn’t plowed was going to freeze solid and stay that way, given the forecast.

-- Wind and cold, which freeze the snow on unplowed streets and drift snow across roads in outlying areas.

Whitcomb and Ben Coopman, public works director for Rock County, said plows might not get to every residential street before the big freeze, which could mean frozen ruts.

“We’re doing our darndest to prevent that. We just need a little cooperation from Mother Nature,” Whitcomb said Wednesday.

Coopman said downed power lines kept county plows out of some rural subdivisions Wednesday.

“It all depends on how the equipment holds up. It’s pretty heavy stuff, so we’ve been having some breakdowns,” Coopman said.

Utility crews also worked long hours over the past two days. But the weather didn’t get as bad as quickly as expected, power company representatives said.

By 9:30 Wednesday night, crews were still working to restore power to 2,500 homes in Rock County, Alliant Energy spokesman Scott Reigstad said.

Crews had been working since midnight, Reigstad said. At the peak of the power outage, 9,500 Rock County Alliant customers were without power.

By 9:30 p.m., 100 Edgerton-area Alliant customers were without power, Reigstad said.

The snowfall—one of the deepest on record—was Stage 1.

Now we’re in Stage 2.

Stage 1 closed schools and businesses, downed tree limbs and cut power to homes Tuesday night and Wednesday.

More of the same is likely in Stage 2, along with biting cold.

The National Weather Service on Wednesday night called for a high temperature of only 9 today. Winds were expected at 15 to 20 mph, not as strong as earlier forecasts, which had predicted a blizzard.

Temperatures were expected to rise slowly through Sunday after a low of 2 below zero tonight.

Rock County and Janesville law enforcement reported no serious accidents Tuesday and Wednesday, so it appears residents heeded warnings to stay put. The warnings continue today.

“State Patrol is discouraging all road travel,” according to a statement from the Wisconsin Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday afternoon.

The Rock County Sheriff’s Office planned to have 10 deputies on the road through today instead of the usual seven, Capt. Gary Groelle said.

The Interstate system remained open during the storm, said Donna Gilson, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Emergency Operations Center.

NOT A RECORD

Janesville received 12.7 inches of snow between 7 a.m. Tuesday and 3 p.m. Wednesday at the wastewater treatment plant on the city’s south side. That makes this the seventh-biggest snow on record. The biggest Janesville snowfalls in Gazette weather records are:

When Inches

Jan. 12-15, 1979 19

Feb. 5-6, 2008 15

Jan. 18, 1936 15

Dec. 5-6, 1994 13.1

Dec. 8-9, 2009 12.7

Jan. 1-2, 1999 12.5

Jan. 3-5, 2005 12.45

Dec. 2-3, 1990 12

Dec. 15, 1987 12

Jan. 30, 1947 12

Feb. 24-25, 1935 12

Dec. 29, 1978-Jan. 1, 1979 11.5