It was six days ago, on June 3oth, that a severe thunderstorm formed over Lake Michigan and moved south, 5-10 miles off shore of Kenosha. Though the storm didn’t come over land in our area,  hurricane force winds, up to 75 mph, swept across the lake and slammed into the lake shore areas. The winds uprooted hundreds of trees, snapped power poles, caused much property damage and left thousands without power for up to three days. It also turned Kenosha’s beautiful lake shore parks into tangled messes of downed trees and branches.

During the storm I was able to grab a little video from our living room window, I then went out on Friday morning and shot some video of the damage. The first video contains those scenes. Yesterday I was able to get to the hardest hit area, South Port Park, and I shot some video of the damage there. That’s the second video.

Kenosha is still a mess and there’s a lot of clean up left. Thankfully all power was restored on Sunday.

 
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Severe Thunderstorm Watch #441 was just issued for all of SE Wisconsin, including Kenosha.

At 5:00pm CDT storms are beginning to fire here in SE WI. The action should pick up as the evening progresses and the cold front begins to move through. The main threat this evening will be large hail and damaging winds, but tornadoes can’t be ruled out.

My high temp at the house today was 94 with a heat index of 100. Yesterday’s high was 96. These are the two hottest days we’ve had in the 3 1/2 years that I’ve lived in Wisconsin.

Tomorrow the bottom drops out of the temps though. Thursday’s forecasted high in Kenosha, 58! We stay in the high 50′s to low 60′s for the next five days with rain chances 4 of the 5.

So much for summer.

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Here’s a link to video of one of the tornadoes that touched down in Butte County California yesterday.

Northern CA Tornado 5-25-2011

NWS Sacramento will be conducting surveys today to determine the number of tornadoes and their strength.

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The National Weather Service in Sacramento has confirmed that two tornadoes touched down today near Chico, CA. A Tornado Warning continues to be in effect until 7:30 pm PDT for Central Butte County. To read more about the tornado and see a photo of it, visit this link: 2 Tornadoes Touch Down in Northern California

On top of that, a Winter Weather Advisory has been issued for the Sierra Nevada through 6am Thrusday. 2-4 inches of snow are forecast above 5000 ft with larger amounts possible at the higher elevations.

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