Sherri Congleton, Vilas County Emergency Management Director, has seen the impact of changes in weather extremes over time. “Even as a kid, I remember we had winter. It was cold, you had snow, you did those things.” But that’s not always the case these days. “Last winter we didn’t have enough snow to even open the [snowmobiling] trails. There’s no typical anymore,” said Congleton. And that makes planning for weather events more complicated. In 2020, Vilas County experienced 2 tornadoes on the same day. “We have a lot of wind events. But, we hadn’t had a tornado since 1995. It was bizarre.”
Wisconsin is projected to experience more frequent and intense extreme weather events. These events impact infrastructure, public health, agricultural systems, and more, resulting in significant economic losses and social disruption. The Extreme Weather Index, developed by the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, shows that Wisconsin has experienced its most extreme weather in the past decade since record-keeping began in 1895.
Steve Vavrus, Director of the State Climatology Office, has been tracking weather for a long time. “The 2010s were Wisconsin’s wettest decade on record and the second-warmest. The state was struck by more than 20 ‘once-in-a-century’ rainfalls, including the infamous August 2018 flood in Dane County that dumped around a foot of rain in a single day,” said Vavrus.
Vavrus, along with Ken Genskow, Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, and Paul Block, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, all affiliated with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, are co-leading a UW-Madison project for the Wisconsin Rural Partnerships Institute (RPI) to increase climate-resiliency in rural areas of the state. RPI (ruralpartners.wisc.edu) is part of a broader $28 million USDA-funded Institute for Rural Partnerships, housed at the UW–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Auburn University, and the University of Vermont.
Developing data, tools, and resources
Congleton is one of many Emergency Management Directors, Public Health Officials, and Hazard Planners working with UW-Madison researchers and Extension specialists to prepare for amplified weather extremes. The project, funded through RPI, is focused on building greater capacity in Wisconsin’s rural communities. Collaborating with farmers, local hazard planning/emergency management officials, and rural schools, they hope to provide data, tools, and resources that will improve the ability to make informed decisions in advance of extreme weather events.
Consistent with the goals of the RPI, Genskow reinforced that working with those groups helps extend the reach of the project to rural residents affected by extreme events. Hazard planners, public health officials, and school districts are important lines of communication before and during extreme weather events. “We hope this project provides planning and decision-support tools to help ensure they are ready with information when needed and can take longer-term actions in advance that may reduce some of the potential impacts.”
Currently, the project is focused on rural communities in three regions of the state – the Driftless region, the Central Sands, and Northern Wisconsin. Within those regions, the project is identifying communities and local stakeholders who are interested in leveraging resources and expertise from UW-Madison and Extension to better prepare for extreme weather.
The first step
Through engagement activities and focused discussion, the group is collecting information from communities about what they are doing, what is going well and what challenges exist. Those discussions will allow the team to identify how extreme weather events are impacting the community and what tools and resources can be developed to improve decision-making processes. Working with partners across UW-Madison, they plan to co-develop forecast and climate change-focused products that are informed by an understanding of the needs, priorities, and expected future conditions of these communities.
Jackson Parr, Climate and Hazards Planning Educator with UW-Madison Extension said that starting with discussions is paramount to the success of the project. “We have been very intentional about letting communities tell us what they need and not the other way around,” said Parr. Letting communities lead the project means that the end product will be used to keep communities safe. “We could collect more data or develop additional analytical tools, but if the resulting resource does not meet the needs of people on the ground or fit into their existing workflows, it won’t have the impact we’re aiming for.”
Already, the team has identified a few common needs. One is that communities are interested in building energy-resilient communities to prevent power outages when extreme weather events occur. Another is a growing concern about getting weather information to rural households, especially those with older or vulnerable residents who might not use cell phones. “Those are just a few of the things we’ve heard, but we are at the beginning stages of meeting with communities,” said Parr.
Next steps
After the team understands the needs, they will begin to develop solutions. “Utilizing the resources at UW-Madison and Extension, we will work with communities to co-design tools they think would be helpful,” said Genskow. Before that, they plan to talk with counties, municipalities, school districts, agricultural organizations, and other community groups that experience extreme weather events including flooding, drought, extreme heat and cold, wildfires, high winds, and false springs.
If your community is interested in participating in the project, contact Jackson Parr, Climate and Hazards Planning Educator with UW-Madison Extension, at jgparr@wisc.edu.
This work is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Creating Extreme Weather Action Plans in Rural Ashland County
Ashland County has survived multiple extreme weather events in the last 15 years, including three floods, a prolonged polar vortex, a 23-inch snowfall in 24 hours, and extreme drought conditions. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of these events prompted support for an extreme weather action planning process.
Local leaders looked to Ashland County Extension to develop a planning process. Community Development educator Lissa Radke provided guidance to build a comprehensive plan, beginning with organizing community listening sessions in five pilot communities to identify the types and risks of disasters and impacts, defining what worked well during the response efforts as well as what needed to improve. The information led to deep conversations about the specific actions that could be taken to enhance community preparedness and response.
Working closely with stakeholders, Radke supported municipalities in developing toolkits to address extreme weather events. For example, municipalities are developing lists of volunteer chainsaw crews to clear roads, phone trees of volunteers who can call vulnerable friends and neighbors, subscribing to a mass alert messaging system, and pursuing a federal grant to install micro-grids at town halls to ensure continued power sources for the whole community during outages. Each community will share their plan with Ashland County’s Comprehensive Plan Review Committee to ensure their actions complement the County’s objectives as much as possible. Ashland County has also updated their Hazard Mitigation Plan to address areas especially vulnerable to flooding.
To learn more about the extreme weather action planning process, contact Lissa Radke, Ashland County UW-Madison Extension, at 715-682-7017; lissa.radke@wisc.edu.
