Big water on Gitchee Gumee

Gitchee Gumee has been very angry for the past couple of days. The storm that came through, spawning tornados and dumping snow over the Great Plains, had a lower barometric pressure reading than the 'Edmund Fitzgerald storm' of November 10, 1975. The strong southwest wind has 20 foot waves surrounding Isle Royale and pounding the Canadian North Shore. I would like to see twenty footers on Superior sometime. From somewhere high, very high, on the shore of course.

At 6pm yesterday we took off from Boston's Logan Airport after watching the news of the storm and the cancellations and delays at Chicago O'Hare and Minneapolis. Our route on good ol' Air Tran was to Milwaukee and then on to MSP. My business associate suggested that if we made it to Milwaukee we could rent a car and drive the rest of the way. I suggested that perhaps we might get the hotel voucher and flip a coin and see if we should stuff ourselves at Maders or Karl Ratzsch's and then work our way through the Sprecher Brewing lineup. Our flight was on time though, and the Boeing 737 came in faster and lower than any commercial plane I've ever been on and a number of passengers were white knuckling their armrests. Our landing at Minneapolis/St Paul was almost identical except we were on the smaller Boeing 717. The image below is the sat photo of the storm, one of the largest in recent memory.

One of these times the VOR and I will note the weather forecast, blow off work, and head north for some wave and storm watching. As I drove home from the airport at 11am, watching the traffic lights dancing in the wind at every intersection, I wished I was up on the Keweenaw in Copper Harbor or Eagle River, watching the big lake show once again that it is indeed the boss.

PORT WING TO SAND ISLAND WI-SAND ISLAND TO BAYFIELD WI-
941 AM CDT WED OCT 27 2010

STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 4 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON

GALE WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 4 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH
LATE TONIGHT

SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY MORNING THROUGH
THURSDAY AFTERNOON

REST OF TODAY
SW GALES TO 40 KT DECREASING TO TO 30 KT LATE IN
THE AFTERNOON. STORM FORCE GUSTS TO 55 KT. SNOW LATE IN THE
MORNING...THEN RAIN AND SNOW LIKELY IN THE AFTERNOON. WAVES 12 TO
16 FT.

TONIGHT
W GALES TO 35 KT WITH GUSTS TO 50 KT DECREASING TO TO
30 KT WITH GUSTS TO 45 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. A CHANCE OF RAIN AND
SNOW SHOWERS IN THE EVENING...THEN A SLIGHT CHANCE OF RAIN AND
SNOW SHOWERS AFTER MIDNIGHT. WAVES 10 TO 14 FT. A GALE WARNING
MAY BE NEEDED.