| Episode Narrative |
Widespread, gradient, strong, northwest winds in the wake of a cold front affected south-central and southeast Wisconsin for about a 21-hour period. The associated deep low pressure moved east across Ontario, Canada. Maximum gusts were in the 39 to 43 knot range (45 to 50 mph) in the Fond du Lac and Sheboygan area south to the Illinois border and in Sauk and Iowa counties. Elsewhere in south-central and southeast Wisconsin maximum wind gusts were in the 35 to 44 mph range while sustained winds were below 26 knots (30 mph). At least eight ASOS or AWOS reporting sites in this strong wind event had sustained wind speeds of 26 to 32 knots (30 to 37 mph) for one hour or more. Severe weather spotter reports and newspaper accounts indicated that scattered power-outages occurred in most of the affected counties due to broken tree branches falling on power-lines. Additionally, some large trees in Fond du Lac County were pushed over. However, a good estimation of damage losses was not possible with this event, therefore a nominal $5000 loss estimate (power-lines) was assigned to each county in this strong wind event. One concentrated area of power-outages stretched from the City of Waukesha and Delafield area on up into southern Washington County. Tree debris knocked a telephone line onto Interstate-94 just south of Delafield near CTH C at about 2020 CST September 27th. This resulted in the closure of the freeway for about 90 minutes. Along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Sheboygan south to the Illinois border, wind gusts of 31 to 36 knots were reported (36 to 45 mph). However, a Marine Strong Wind event was not logged in this issue of Storm Data for September, 2009, since there were no injuries, fatalities, or damage associated with these gusts. |
