Most inland lakes freeze up every winter in Wisconsin. But how often do the Great Lakes freeze over? The answer depends on the lake. Lake Erie is a smaller and shallower lake which tends to ice over 7 out of every 10 winters. Meanwhile, Lake Ontario, which is furthest east, almost never freezes over. This is particularly due to its depth which drops to around 800 feet in some locations.

The data provided in the graphic above is based on winters dating back to the mid 70s.

Lake Michigan will only ice over 11% of our winters. In fact it hasn’t nearly frozen over since 1979. Since the lake has a north-south orientation the southern portions of the lake tend to stay warmer than the north.

As for Lake Superior, you wouldn’t think it could freeze over, but it happens. Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world and contains more water than all of the other Great Lakes combined. It’s deepest point is around 1,300 feet. But still Superior freezes over… the last time it happened was last year. Take a look at the high resolution satellite image below and you can see that the lake is more than 90% covered with ice. The image is taken on March 1, 2009. Lakes tend to develop there most significant ice coverage during the month of February.

Compare that image to the satellite image taken last week of Lake Superior.

As you can see, there is a lot of open water and the lake has barely began to freeze up. That is far behind where it was last year at this point. Last year, there was far more ice development. In other words, for Superior to freeze over this year it would require an extreme and extended cold blast during February.

While we have last year in mind. Take a look at the image below from Lake Michigan on January 27th. The bay of Green Bay is completely froze over and the bright reflectivity of the snowpack over the ice shows up well on this satellite image.

Meanwhile, this year the bay has recently froze up (as shown below), but the ice isn’t quite as thick. The thickest ice on the bay is in its southern and eastern sections. Most of the new ice has developed along the western portions of the bay.

All of the Great Lakes are behind average for this time of year when it comes to ice coverage. Mild temperatures during the past couple of weeks may be to blame. The region also hasn’t seen any extreme and long lived cold blasts. Thin ice is developing along the shores of most lakes, with the most ice coverage on Lake Erie.

As shown below, by March 1, Lake Erie could completely freeze over. Huron will see more ice development and in Lake Michigan more ice development is expected in the northern portions of the lake. Superior will develop more ice, but won’t be close to freezing over.

Until Next Time,
Meteorologist Andrew Thut

By The Associated Press

If an insurance company thinks you take a lot of risks, it might charge you higher premiums. Is the government considering charging banks a fee for the same reason?

Curiosity about a risk-based levy proposed for banks inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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An NFL team is a huge organization with several hundred employees. How many Super Bowl rings are given to the winning team? Who makes them, and what do they cost?

Luke Pearson
Westminster, Md.

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When the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl last year, every single one of their full-time employees got a ring – but they didn’t necessarily receive the same gaudy ones as stars like Ben Roethlisberger.

Players, coaches, football operations staff and other top-level employees got a ring that weighed 3.7 ounces and included 63 diamonds totaling 3.61 carats. The rings were cast in 14-karat yellow gold with black antique backgrounds. Female employees received a smaller version because the full-size ring would have been too big for them to wear.

Lower-level employees received a ring with less gold and fewer diamonds, since buying the full-size ring for the entire organization would be prohibitively expensive. The NFL pays for up to 150 rings at $5,000 apiece, with the club picking up the rest of the cost.

When the Giants won the Super Bowl, the team said the rings cost about $5,500 each, but were valued at $25,000.

Jewelry companies such as Jostens manufacture the rings.

Rachel Cohen
AP Sports Writer
New York

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I read, in the last couple of weeks, a proposal to assess banks a fee based on the risk of their investments. This seemed to make sense, since that, theoretically, is the basis for the premium on individuals’ insurance policies. I haven’t heard more since then – is it still something being considered?

Michael E. Ulrich
West Columbia, S.C.

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This was an idea proposed by President Barack Obama as a way to cover any shortfall in the taxpayer-backed $700 billion financial rescue fund set up at the height of the Wall Street crisis in the fall of 2008.

The levy would be assessed only on large financial institutions with assets of more than $50 billion – a group estimated at about 50. The fee would be a 0.15 percent tax on the liabilities of those firms, excluding any insured deposits. Liabilities are a way of measuring an institution’s risk level, so you can think of the proposed fee as a tax on the risks that banks take.

The White House expects the fee to raise about $90 billion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office expects the long-term shortfall of the rescue fund – known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP – to be $99 billion. That means the fee could recoup the TARP losses in 11 years.

The goal of the fee was twofold – repay taxpayers and discourage large banks from assuming too many liabilities outside of deposits.

Executives at large banks object to the fee because most of the TARP shortfall will be the result of infusions of money not to the banks but to the auto industry and insurance conglomerate American International Group, along with spending to ease mortgage foreclosures. Most large banks have repaid their TARP loans, plus dividend payments on top of that, so their executives believe such a fee unfairly singles them out.

Jim Kuhnhenn
Associated Press Writer
Washington

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Does any individual own the copyright to “The Star Spangled Banner”? If so, do you have any idea how much they would earn each year in royalties?

Bill Hart
Canton, Ohio

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No one owns the copyright to “The Star Spangled Banner,” so no songwriting royalties are being collected by anyone at the moment.

The song was copyrighted in 1861 in New York and any piece of music with a copyright date of 1922 or earlier is in the public domain, which means anyone can use it for free.

The tune was arranged by George Warren with words written by Francis Scott Key in 1814, set to the music of “To Anacreon in Heaven,” according to sheet music obtained by Haven Sound Inc., which runs the site PDInfo.com.

Any song published after January 1972 is protected by copyright through 2067, according to Haven Sound president Lynn Nagrani. Songs written before 1972 are subject to a mishmash of state laws.

However, performers who sing “The Star Spangled Banner” own their own sound recording. That’s why Jennifer Hudson can sell her version, which she belted out at last year’s Super Bowl, on iTunes, and she doesn’t have to pay Key’s heirs any royalties.

Performers can also rearrange public domain songs and copyright their own versions, like Peter, Paul & Mary did with the public domain song “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”

Ryan Nakashima
AP Business Writer
Los Angeles

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

With temperatures like this, it doesn’t take long to get cold. But as far as cold blasts go, this one is rather weak. Last night’s low temperature (January 28th) didn’t even fall below zero in Green Bay. In fact, the coldest temperature all winter has been -5°. It occurred twice in early December. .. In comparison to the previous 5 winters, there is a stark difference.

Figure 1. Coldest Temperatures

As shown in the graphic above, last winter’s coldest temperature was -21° – which wasn’t even a record.

Green Bay’s coldest temperature ever was -33° on February 10th, 1899. The coldest temperature in Wisconsin was -55°, on February 4th of 1996, in Couderay in the northwestern part of the state. That was the same cold snap in which the temperature didn’t rise above 0° for 5 consecutive days here in Green Bay.

Figure 2. Nights below 0° up till January 28

The mercury has only dipped to or below zero 8 times this winter. Compare that to last year when temperatures dropped to or below zero 31 different times from December through January 28. On average there are 14 to 15 nights below zero up to this point. That’s a lot of cold days and it doesn’t even account for February and the beginning of March.

Figure 3. Avg. Nights Below 0° All Year

The graphic above displays, the average amount of nights below zero during an entire year. In Green Bay, we typically see 20 to 25 nights below 0°. Meanwhile, places like Antigo can see more than 40 nights below zero. In other words a 2 hour drive can make a huge difference. That difference would be even greater if you were traveling from the lakeshore to the northwoods. The warmer waters of Lake Michigan tend to keep those communities warmer at night. The reason being is that water doesn’t cool off as quickly as land.

With all of these statistics in mind, I have a few more for you. Back in December, we had 3 consecutive nights below zero, but last year we had a stretch of ten nights below 0°. Again this goes to show that our cold snaps this year haven’t been to extreme.

Figure 4. Consecutive Nights Below 0°

One interesting point to be made on this graphic is the stretch of 9 consecutive nights below zero in 2006-07. This actually occurred in February of that winter. Compare that to Figure 2 which shows through January 28, in 2006-07 the temperature only dropped to or below zero once. In other words, it was a mild start to the year, with a brutally cold blast in February, something that isn’t all too uncommon.

Of course when you have these frigid temperatures at night, the mercury doesn’t always recover during the day. Today (January 28) was the second day this winter with highs only in the single digits. In fact today’s high of 8° was the coldest all year. Tomorrow’s highs will be back into the lower teens, which means we won’t see consecutive days with highs only in the single digits.

Figure 5. Consecutive days in the 0's or colder

As shown in Figure 5, there was a stretch of 4 consecutive days last winter in which the temperatures didn’t rise into the teens. A similar stretch has occurred three other times in the past 5 winters, meaning these brutal cold snaps usually don’t last much longer than 4 or 5 days.

Often times, during these cold snaps, the temperature won’t even rise above 0° That has occurred 4 times in just the past three years. While it hasn’t happened yet this winter, we have a lot of cold days ahead of us.

Figure 6. Days Below 0°

Until Next Time,
Meteorologist Andrew Thut

Believe it or not we are half way through winter… the meteorological winter that is. The meteorological winter runs from December 1 through the last day of February. Up to this point in the season, winter hasn’t been too cold. Take a look at the image below which shows the temperature departure from average this winter.

As you can see, the average temperature has been near or above normal for the entire state. Part of the reason why temperatures have been above average is the recent mild stretch.

Meanwhile, we have seen around 26 inches of snow this winter in Green Bay. Most of it (14.7”) came from Blizzard Allison. The southwestern parts of the state have received a bit more snow, part of that came from the Christmas storm, which dropped mostly rain in Northeast Wisconsin.

The image below shows how our snowfall compares to average this winter. We are very seasonable here in Green Bay at around 2 inches above average. Just for reference, at this point last year, we were around 30 inches above average.

Again, most of the snow came in December (more than 20 inches). January typically is the snowiest month all year. That’s not the case this year as we have only received 5.5”. As far as temperatures, it was a touch cool in December and a cool start to January. However, during the past couple of weeks temperatures have been mild. The latest mild stretch has snapped as lows will fall near 0° tonight with highs around 9° on Thursday.

Until Next Time,
Meteorologist Andrew Thut

Slow moving low pressure will give us a little light snow tonight.  That same low will tap some cold air in Canada and send it our way for the rest of the work week.

Low will give us snow, then cold

Cold air in Canada Monday will move our way Tuesday

By The Associated Press

Some people on Capitol Hill want to get the ball rolling on a thorough audit. But don’t worry – they’re not talking about your tax return.

A Senate bill proposes a full audit of the Federal Reserve. But what exactly would that entail? And when did the Fed last go through such a comprehensive inspection?

Curiosity about the proposed audit inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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In your stories on the recent tragic shooting in Espoo, Finland, you mentioned that Finland is among the top five nations in the world regarding civilian gun ownership. I assume the U.S. is also among the top five. What are the other three nations?

Andrew Gallagher
Costa Mesa, Calif.
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There are 1.6 million firearms in private hands in Finland, which has 650,000 licensed gun owners – about 12 percent of the country’s 5.3 million people. They include hunters, target shooters and gun collectors.

Finland ranks fourth in civilian gun ownership per capita after the United States, Yemen and Switzerland, and Serbia is fifth, according to a 2007 report on civilian firearms by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based watchdog organization. It’s the most recent report they’ve done on the subject.

After two school shootings in 2007 and 2008, the Finnish government began preparing tighter gun laws. But the antigun lobby in Finland is weak, especially in rural areas, where Finns say hunting traditions justify widespread gun ownership.

A 2002 government study found that 14 percent of homicides in Finland are gun-related. In the United States, nearly 67 percent of murders reported to police in the same year were committed with a firearm, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Matti Huuhtanen
Associated Press Writer
Helsinki

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A lot of noise has been made about Sen. Bernie Sanders’ bill to audit the Fed. What does this bill actually do, and has the Fed ever been audited? If so, when was the last time that happened?

Richard B. Kahn
Hudson, N.H.

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Sanders’ legislation, dubbed the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, would require Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, to complete an audit of the Federal Reserve in Washington and its 12 regional banks around the country before the end of this year.

Under current law, the GAO has the authority to audit nearly every aspect of the Fed – with a few exceptions. An important one: the setting of interest rates used to steer the economy. That exemption for monetary policy was passed by Congress in 1978.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is opposed to Sanders’ bill because it wouldn’t retain that exemption. Without it, Bernanke fears that Congress would be able to meddle with the Fed’s interest rate decisions. (Some transactions, such as those with foreign central banks and foreign governments, also are currently exempted from GAO audits.)

Over the years, GAO has conducted multiple audits of various Fed operations. More recently, GAO has been looking into the Fed’s role as banking supervisor.

Jeannine Aversa
AP Economics Writer
Washington

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What is current health status of George H.W. Bush?

Charlie Sanders
Santa Fe, N.M.

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Former President George H.W. Bush, 86, frequently attends Houston Texans NFL games and Houston Astros baseball games in his adopted hometown and appears at other events as well. Last month, he was at the dedication of a museum wing in his honor at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.

He has been walking with a cane for well over a year. He has had two hip surgeries and a back operation since 2000, but aides say he is pain-free, contending only with balance issues, and has no other overriding health issues. He went skydiving to mark his 80th and 85th birthdays and has said a skydive on his 90th birthday is still in the plans.

Michael Graczyk
Associated Press Writer
Houston

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

Last week’s magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti was the strongest the country has seen in more than 2 centuries. With that in mind, what are the odds of a similar earthquake happening in the United States?

Chance of a Magnitude 7.0 Earthquake:

Los Angeles: 1 in every 200 years

Anchorage: 1 in every 400 years

Las Vegas: 1 in every 50,000 years

Green Bay: 1 in every 20 million years.

The last earthquake to impact the United States with a magnitude of at least 7.0 was in 2005, when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred off the coast on northern California. Fortunately, since the earthquake was off the coast only minor damage was reported.

But what exactly does a magnitude 7.0 earthquake mean? The Richter scale is shown below with corresponding severity.

Magnitude 3.5 or less: Generally not felt, but recorded

Magnitude 3.5 – 5.4: Often felt, but rarely causes damage.

Magnitude 5.5 – 5.9: At most slight damage to well-designed buildings. Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings.

Magnitude 6.1 – 6.9: Can be destructive in areas up to 100 km across where people live.

Magnitude 7.0-7.9: Major Earthquake. Can cause serious damage over larger areas.

Magnitude 8 or greater: Can cause serious damage in areas several hundred kilometers across.

The graphic below displays the faults and fault areas across the continental US. As you can see, the majority of the faults are in the western portions of the nation with several fault areas in the central and eastern US.

Faults and Fault Areas

However, just because there are fault areas in the east, doesn’t mean that these areas are more prone to seeing earthquakes. In fact, from 1974 to 2003, there were only 17 earthquakes in Illinois that had a magnitude of 3.5 or greater.

Number of Earthquakes per State 1974-2003

Here is how the list breaks down for states with the most earthquakes:

States with the most Earthquakes

Alaska tops the list by far. They see more than 50% of the nations earthquakes. The strongest earthquake ever in the US occurred just east of Anchorage, Alaska in 1964. The quake measured a 9.2 on the Richter scale. Below are damage photos from the event.

Elementary school destroyed in Anchorage

Damage from Tsunami caused by quake

The earthquake claimed the lives of 131 people and caused an estimated 2.7 billion dollars worth of damage (adjusted for inflation)

Until Next Time,

Meteorologist Andrew Thut

Winter Storm Chloe dropped up to 6 inches of snow across the area on January 7^th.  Two days following the storm Green Bay had 10 inches of snow on the ground, while parts of southeastern Wisconsin had more than 16 inches of snow (denoted in gray in the image below). The darker blue represents 11-15” of snow while the lighter blue stands for 6-10”.

Snow depth on January 9, 2010

Since this snow depth observation, only a dusting of snow has affected the area and melting and evaporating are depleting the snowpack. The image below represents the snow depth on the morning of Tuesday, January 19^th.

Snow Depth January 19, 2010

As you can see, the state hasn’t gained snow, but considerable melting has taken place most notably in the southern portions of the state. The light blue areas represent 0-5″ of snow.

Snow depth change from January 9-19

5 inches of snow have melted in Milwaukee since January 9^th. During that stretch there have been 4 days above the freezing mark. In comparison, temperatures haven’t been quite as mild in Green Bay. Green Bay has only seen 1 day above freezing during the same period and only 2 inches of snow have melted. More melting is possible on Saturday and Sunday with temperatures in the low to mid 30s. The most melting is likely to take place on Sunday with a rainy mix expected…

Just for fun, I thought I would compare today’s snow depth with last year right now. The answer is in the graphic below.

Snow depth this year vs last year

We had twice as much snow at this time last year when there was 16 inches on the ground.

Until Next Time,
Meteorologist Andrew Thut

My Sony E-Reader (Digital Reader Pocket Edition) didn’t last 2 weeks, I returned it. 

Sony e-reader

The first thing that annoyed me was the slow rate that it would change pages.  For a devise that simply displays text, you think it would work quickly, this one didn’t.

You can only buy electronic books (e-books) from the readers maker. Sony can only read Books from the Sony store, the Kindle only from Amazon, and the Nook only from Barnes and Noble.  Sure you can download a few old out of copy write e-books from Google, but I want to read the latest books on the stands.  And e-book prices turned me off, I found many e-books on the Sony site that where just as expensive as the hard cover books.  Shouldn’t an e-book be a little cheaper since it didn’t need paper, ink, or to be shipped?

Amazon has FREE Kindle software to download on your computer that reads e-books.  So I downloaded a book for $9 onto my computer and started reading.  My only problem is that I have a desktop computer so my electronic book was not portable.  However I found a FREE App for my Apple iTouch that allowed me to transfer Kindle books from computer to my iTouch.  Now my electronic book is portable and I didn’t have to buy a book reader.  The iTouch screen is small so reading a book on it takes some getting use to.  You can adjust the text size on the iTouch and it  turns pages quickly.  400 pages later I found that my iTouch is now my e-reader.

As temperatures rise above freezing our snow pack is starting to shrink.  The National Weather Service plots snow depths daily in NE Wisconsin.  Snow depth maps are created each morning after 9 AM, click here for the latest map.  Click here for snow depths across the state.

Snow depth as of Saturday Morning