Friday's Obervations

Precipitation: Light snow in the late afternoon.
Sky Conditions: The sky has been consistently covered with a layer of stratus clouds. I would estimate that 80% of the sky was covered. In the late morning some sun was visible but filtered by the cloud cover.
Wind conditions: I noticed a slight breeze from the North west.

To verify my findings today's weather conditions were noted by Weather Underground at 5:33pm:  Temperature- 27.7 degrees F with a dew point at 20 degree F
Wind: from the Northwest at 5.1mph
Sky Conditions: Slightly cloudy/overcast
Radar:

My Forecast: I predict that the light snowfall will continue into the mid evening. Cloud cover will continue throughout the day Saturday cover 80% of the sky. The temperature will fall to around 0 degrees F overnight and rise to a high between 15-20 degrees F on Saturday.

On another note here is today's interesting news...
A personal story was that upon arriving home yesterday afternoon I found water seeping down my bedroom wall due to an ice dam on the roof. this was due to repeated snowfalls and then an increase in temperatures during the day into the double digits and repeated coolings overnight. Eau Claire residents should be aware of roof damages due to ice build ups throughout the Wisconsin winter.

Thursday's Observations

So today is already mostly over so I'll just report on what I've noticed so far about today's weather. I woke up this morning to find Eau Claire covered in about 2" of light fluffy snow. The temperature is fairly warm for a mid to late January day in Wisconsin. The current reported temperature is 24.4 degrees F according to Weather Underground.  The sky is currently overcast but with no looming clouds in sight. I expect that with the warm weather and no shifting wind that the temperature will drop to only the single digits for the overnight low.

Flooding in Brazil

According to CNN the death toll had reached over 600 people and was still rising for the Brazilian City of Rio de Janeiro on January 17, 2011. The flooding occured for over a week and causes many mudslides. Here is a link to a BBC report and a video of one stranded women and her dog. this is just one of hundreds of thosands of people caught unaware and in their homes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12180079

Flooding in Australia

Here's a video our professor Joe Hupy shared with us about the recent flooding in Australia.