The dry weather continues in Northeast Wisconsin. We haven’t seen rain since late August. Our stretch without rain has reached 20 days. We haven’t seen a longer period without rain yet this year. The closest mark is 18 days, which occurred in early April. In fact, this dry stretch is the longest since 1999.

It is officially the driest start to September on record in Green Bay, Appleton, Manitowoc, Oshkosh, Rhinelander and Wausau. That covers the majority of Northeast Wisconsin. So far, on the month, Green Bay is running around 2 inches below average when it comes to rain.

While the period without rain seems extremely long, it doesn’t even compare to the longest stretch without rain. From late September through mid November in 1952, no rain was reported for 54 days. We aren’t even half way there. If we were to tie this record, we wouldn’t have any rain until October 22 (more than a month away).

Our last day with precipitation was Saturday, August 29th. It was a gloomy and cool day with steady rain through the afternoon. However, the rainfall from the night before may have been even more memorable. Strong storms rumbled through the area during the evening, and to our luck, many people took pictures and uploaded them to our website at the link here. Below is one of the pictures which displays the gust front that was visible in the Fox Cities.

On the same night, the thunderstorms also caused problems for area high schools as many prep football games were delayed. Fortunately, rain will not be a problem this evening, as high schools take to the field again. Expect mostly clear skies with temperatures falling from the low to mid 60s to the mid 50s by the end of the game.

Until Next Time,
Meteorologist Andrew Thut