Unseasonably mild weather will continue for a few more days with high temperatures between 13 and 17 degrees warmer than normal (the normal high is 40°)  A cold front will impact us as we head into the long Holiday weekend.

We can expect fair weather through the weekend courtesy of a high pressure area which will drift west to east over the state.  High temperature today will be near 42° with a northeast wind at 5-10 mph but winds turn to the south tomorrow and temperatures will top out near 50° for the weekend.

It’ll be a mild start to the gun deer season with temperatures near 30° and patchy fog at sunrise, otherwise mostly clear skies.  Actually there’s not much difference in the opening day forecast no matter where you travel in the state.  As for Thanksgiving, it’s still looking nice. Have a great day!

Very quiet weather continues with highs in the 40s and lows near 30.  So let’s take a look at a couple of  “Big Day” forecasts.  First is the Gun Deer opener on Saturday.  Things are holding with partly to mostly sunny skies at 7 am and temperatures near 30.  For Thanksgiving Day (and remember this is a long way out) right now it looks mostly cloudy and a high near 44.  A storm on the east coast may be impacting New England on Turkey Day and could even bring us a cool down as the day wears; so check back for updates. Have a great day!

Temperatures will warm into the upper 40s for the weekend with the morning lows near 30 both Saturday and Sunday and mostly to partly sunny skies. That’s a great forecast for this time of the year unless you’re a deer hunter and you want tracking snow.  All indications are that we won’t see snow for the next 7 days.  In Green Bay we have yet to see measurable snow (at least 0.1″) this season. The average date for the first measurable snowfall is today, November 13th.

Speaking of November 13th, it was 3 years ago today that I had to leave Good Day Wisconsin early to take my wife to the hospital.  A few hours later our 3rd child Georgia Anne was born.  Happy Birthday Georgia!  Below is a picture of  her from Saturday when we celebrated her birthday…when she got all her gifts.  Although yesterday she turned to me when she saw something on TV she wanted and said, “Dada, I want that on my real birthday.”  To which I replied, “maybe Santa will bring you that.”

It’s about 30° colder today than yesterday with flurries and snow showers expected so it is a perfect day to unveil the winter storm names for 2012/13.  The first name was a boy’s name (Alan) since we started with a girl’s name last year (Angela).

In case you’re wondering who picks the names…that would be me.  I run it by my boss but I put the first list out there and sometimes we tweak it a bit.  I try to use popular names from different decades (the social security list of names comes in handy)  so that all generations get a chance to have a storm named after them.  For instance Alan was popular in the 60s and Denise in the 70s; Brianna in the 2000s.  I’ve also heard from a number of people who would like to have a continuation of names into the next year so that we would see some winter storms that start with  the letter “P” or “S”.  I may have to consider that next year because I admit, it is getting a bit lean for different names at the beginning of the alphabet.  Below you’ll find the names and the factors the FOX 11 meteorologists use to determine if a storm should get a name.

Don’t forget to tune in Wednesday during the FOX 11 News at 5 for Patrick Powell’s winter weather forecast.  Long range forecasting like this is very difficult and Patrick uses every bit of his expertise and skill to come up with an idea of what the season will look like in both temperature and snowfall.

WHERE DID FOX 11 GO?

Given the number of recent phone calls, emails and messages we’ve received about where our station is – and now is not – being carried, I thought I would try to explain the issues for everyone.

First, some background:

Industry-wide, the country is divided into 210 markets. The largest is New York City, with Glendive, Montana, the smallest. The Green Bay-Appleton market is the 69th largest, with about 445,000 television homes. Each market has defined boundaries. Our has 17 counties.

However, our market does not include Sheboygan County – which is in the Milwaukee market. And it doesn’t include Michigan’s Upper Peninsula beyond Menominee County.

Why is that important?

The Fox Network is enforcing contract language with companies that retransmit our signal – i.e. TimeWarner or Charter Cable – that only the affiliate for that market be provided on a channel lineup. As such, our signal has been removed from the channel lineups in those areas I mentioned, such as Sheboygan, where just WITI will be provided.

This is not something that is being done at our request, despite the claims of some providers. And we aren’t particularly pleased to losing some of our faithful viewers.

While the Fox Network programming may be the same on WLUK as it is on WITI, many other shows – particularly our newscasts, football shows and ‘Living With Amy’ – are unique to our station. If a cable company chose to carry our signal for our local programs, they would have to block out all the network shows that are duplicated from FOX – and cable companies typically do not provide a channel when they have to block out so many programs.

Viewers losing us through a cable or other provider could try to get our signal with an antenna, but we cannot guarantee success given the distances involved.

We would offer this advice, however: make sure to get an antenna that receives a VHF signal. As assigned by the FCC, WLUK’s broadcast signal is on Channel 11.1. The other stations in the market all use UHF signals (i.e. WBAY is on 23.1). Some stores sell antennae that only receive UHF, so that won’t help you trying to reach us.

Switching providers – such as from cable to satellite – won’t help, either.

The network is not “picking” on WLUK. In fact, we would expect that in Fond du Lac County – which is part of our market – that systems there will be seeing WITI removed from the lineup at some point in the near future for the same reason.

As for why the network would do this, it comes down to protecting the local affiliate within a select market.

If a viewer in Sheboygan County watches “American Idol” on WLUK and records that with Nielsen, we do not get ratings credit for it because it’s outside our market. And because that viewer didn’t watch WITI, they can’t get credit. So, the local affiliate doesn’t get any credit for a viewer that watched American Idol. With Fox 11 taken off the Charter system, now viewers there will have to watch WITI for American Idol – and the station and network will get the appropriate credit.

We know it may not make a lot of sense. The Sheboygan high schools are in a conference with the Green Bay schools, for example. Or maybe you just like our newscasts better. We thank you for that. However, in this case, we are the ones being caught in the middle.

You can still check out many of our stories and features at fox11online.com or through our Facebook page. We do not stream entire newscasts due to a variety of video rights issues.

We again want to offer our thanks to the viewers that we have served over the years.

Enjoy the warm weather today because the cooler air is pushing in overnight.  A cold front will push through the state this afternoon but we’ll still be on the warm side so expect highs near 82°.  (Normal high is 72°)  Rain will develop overnight and we’ll see periods of rain Thursday with a high of only 65°!  If you’re heading to the Packers-Bears game tomorrow evening, there will still be a 30% chance of showers with a kickoff temperature of 58° and north winds at 5-10 mph.  We’ve seen a very warm Spring and Summer, check out the highlights on our timeline.

Enjoy the warm, sunny conditions today and tomorrow because as Sam Cooke sang, “A Change is Gonna Come.”  Breezy southwest winds today will usher in high temperatures in the 80s and we’ll continue to see unseasonable warmth Wednesday ahead of an approaching cold front. (The normal high for this time of year is 72°) The front will impact us Thursday as highs only reach 66° with periods of rain.  The cool down will last through the rest of the work week but right now it’s looking better for the weekend.  Bring your official NFL Licensed Green Bay Packer Poncho to the game on Thursday against the Bears, you may need it.

We may see some patchy fog this morning, otherwise it’s shaping up to be a warmer, beautiful day with lots of sunshine. An area of high pressure will influence our weather the next few day.  The center of that system will be right over the state today which not only means sunshine but also light winds (west at about 5 mph).  The next best chance of rain and thunderstorms is on Friday.  Have a great day

We’re drying out today after a very wet Thursday.  Rainfall totals of between 1 and 2 inches was commonplace in the area.  Today we deal with strong north and northeast winds at 15 to 25 mph so hold on to your hats!  The weekend is improving with lots of sunshine and highs in the upper 70s.