May 16, 2012
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Conditions at Wausau Downtown Airport, WI
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Tue Jan 24 05:42:48 PST 2012
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Reporter: Chad Franzen cfranzen@wsaw.com

CORONAL MASS EJECTION is ON!

Throughout this past weekend, there was a huge solar flare that developed and has been affecting the Earth throughout the past few days. Solar flares happen from time to time, so there is nothing new about that.

However, in conjunction with this solar flare this time around, comes a Coronal Mass Ejection that arrives around 8am local time for today (Tuesday). With both solar events occurring at the same time, it should set the stage for a great viewing of the Northern Lights for tonight, with some very bright and vivid colors.  In addition, there could be some sporadic outages with satellite communications (such as cell phones and GPS) and on a rare occasion, an electrical grid or two, could experience an outage (such as Quebec in 1989).

Unfortunately, Mother Nature may not cooperate fully with our area, as clouds are expected to roll back in and thicken up later tonight, as another weather front approaches the area for Wednesday. I won't say "set your alarm for 2am and you have to wake up to see this once in a lifetime event" by any means, but I will say, if you're awake later tonight or early tomorrow morning, it may behoove you to have a look at the northern sky to see what you can see. In addition, outside the city limits is the best place to view these as well. However, I don't think there will be enough gaps in the clouds to be able to see them much at all.

Have a good time and lets hope that it doesn't remain overcast and cloudy for tonight!

 

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  • by Anonymous on Jan 25, 2012 at 12:25 PM
    concerning your arctic air graphics showing penguins, penguins are from the ANTarctic and southern hemisphere. maybe polar bears would be more appropriate just sayin'
    [ Report Abuse ]
    • reply
      by Chad Franzen on Jan 27, 2012 at 05:30 PM in reply to
      Hello! I totally agree! I don't like using that graphic for that very reason to be honest with you. However, it seems to get the most attention from the viewers that things are about to get cold. If those weather animations were "fixable" at a local level, I would do it in a heartbeat!
      [ Report Abuse ]

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