29. Sprinkles last night, sunny today, rain & some thunder tomorrow.
Weak snow (northern Minnesota) and rain showers moved across the region last night, some areas reported only a hundredth or two, many places reported that nothing reached the ground. I measured 0.01" in the rain gauge this morning.
Today is looking fantastic! It looks like most areas have blue skies and sunshine. This image (to the right) is from UW's SSEC and shows the visible satellite view from 9:45 this morning. Only a few clouds are visible across central Wisconsin and the eastern UP of Michigan.
Rain creeps into the forecast.
The official National Weather Service forecast, for my location (to the left), shows today's sunshine will yield to increasing clouds and rain by tomorrow. Chances are that we will not see widespread/heavy rain, but are good that rain showers and a few storms will be found throughout the region on Tuesday and Tuesday night.
Thunder possible, stronger storm will likely stay much farther south.
This map (to the right), from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), and shows the thunderstorm outlook for Tuesday.
The area encompassed by the brown line fall within a risk of general thunderstorms. The green outline shows the areas that may see some storms with larger hail (over 3/4" and strong winds (over 58 mph).
Heavy rain is not expected.
This map (to the left), from the HPC, shows forecast rainfall amounts from the computer models. It's also worth noting that the models usually over-estimate precipitation forecasts, so these numbers are on the top-end of expectations.
Across Wisconsin, the map shows between 0.10" and 0.70" are possible, with the heaviest amount coinciding with the risk of stronger storms across western Wisconsin.
Cyclone Nargis hit Burma Friday night.
The cyclone hit the capital region of Burma as a high Cat 3 or low Cat 4 with winds around 135 mph. However, it wasn't the wind that killed so many people, but the flooding (up to 13 feet of storm surge) in a populated lowland.
A clip from the BBC's article:
But reports from the storm-hit region say thousands of buildings have been flattened, power lines downed, trees uprooted, roads blocked and water supplies disrupted.
A Rangoon resident who spoke to relatives in Laputta has told BBC Burmese that 75% to 80% of the town was destroyed.
He said houses along the coast had been reduced to skeletal structures while, further along the coast, 16 villages had been virtually wiped out. No help had yet reached Laputta, he said.
This news article has been running on BBC, though Burma is closed to western media, the BBC is reporting as much information that is allowed out of the country. The full article can be read here, with more headlines possible on the BBC's main page.
The death toll may continue to rise, but we know only what the government wants the world to know, they may be hiding the truth.
At the current death toll of over 3900 people, this storm has already killed twice Hurricane Katrina did in the U.S. This list (to the right) contains six of the deadliest hurricanes in recent times.
An blog has been written about this cyclone by Dr. Masters on Wunderground.com, more information and maps can be found there.
Post Script: A new AP article on Yahoo! suggests the death toll could rise as high as 10,000.
Rain creeps into the forecast. 
Thunder possible, stronger storm will likely stay much farther south. 
Heavy rain is not expected.
Cyclone Nargis hit Burma Friday night. 
A clip from the BBC's article: 
The death toll may continue to rise, but we know only what the government wants the world to know, they may be hiding the truth.
