Weather Warnings And Draft Discussion (Hour 3)

Transcript

Weather Warnings And Draft Discussion (Hour 3)

Daybreak w/ Brian and Jamie · Fri Apr 10, 2026

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

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Across the state of Wisconsin, Daybreak with Brian and Jamie is back.

It's 8-06 right now.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We always appreciate it.

Happy Friday.

We love being able to say that because I think we're all ready for another weekend.

This is Daybreak.

My name is Jamie Martenson.

Good morning.

I'm Brian Noonan.

It is the third hour of the show.

We're glad you stick around or if you're just joining us.

Where have you been?

We've been on since six, but we're happy you arrived.

And if you want to get involved, 855-757-855-752-4842.

Later in the hour, of course, we wrap things up with Dairyland Diaries, so some good news stories to wrap it up because right now we have to look at some headlines coming from the Persian Gulf and the Iran War.

Starting off the United Arab Emirates says it will reassess which regional partners it can rely on and review its national priorities after bearing the brunt of Iranian attacks during the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

Also this morning, Israeli strikes made Wednesday the deadliest day in Lebanon since the war began, with more than 300 people killed according to the health ministry.

There are lingering disagreements over whether the ceasefire covers the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran is warning of strong responses if attacks of its military ally don't stop.

Israel and Lebanon are expected to have negotiations starting next week in Washington that according to a person familiar with the matter Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had approved direct talks while the Lebanese government did not immediately respond.

Netanyahu said there is no ceasefire in Lebanon and his country will keep striking Hezbollah.

And finally, negotiations between Iran and the U.S.

are set to take place Saturday in Islamabad.

They will be the first talks between both sides since the war began.

This is where we will see J.D.

Vance, Steve Whitcoff, and Jared Kushner work their magic.

Weren't they, by the way, weren't they the first, first envoy that went, that was supposedly supposed to be in the middle of talks when this war began?

Yeah, they were negotiating.

Whitcoff and Kushner, for sure.

Those two were there, they were negotiating.

And you're right, in the midst of negotiations, the tangerine tyrant decides to start dropping bombs.

So this can't go anything but wonderfully.

Worst trio ever.

I defy anybody to give me a worst trio than these three.

You know, here's the thing about all of this.

As you listen to those headlines, kind of seems like the ceasefire was not really a ceasefire and wasn't super organized, well planned out.

Lebanon has no idea if they're involved.

Israel says they are.

The U.S.

says it's on you to figure out at this point.

Well, it all, it all, it shows, it puts a clearer point on the fact that this was Israel's thing all along because they're not stopping.

Israel, and it also shows that we lost.

Yeah.

We reached a point where we knew Iran was not going to give up.

They were going to keep fighting until the last person was there.

They took control of the straight.

They had control there.

We lost control there.

We lost.

And it's not a good feeling.

But we're still losing.

Are you tired of losing yet?

We're losing and losing.

It's great losing.

There's more stuff, though, that we have to know.

It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.

Time for some shit you need to know.

All right, well, the election was Tuesday.

And as always, mail-in ballots are now at the center of what happens after an election.

Milwaukee's top election official said her office received, quote, an unprecedented number of mail-in absentee ballots.

the morning after Tuesday's spring election that cannot be counted.

Polina Gutierrez is the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.

She said her office received 269 mail-in absentee ballots on the morning of Wednesday, April 8, which if you look at your calendar, if you still have a paper calendar, uh, means that's the day after election day.

Ballots.

could have been counted if they had gotten there in time.

She said, oddly, she only received 20 ballots on Election Day.

Not uncommon for some absentee ballots to be too late to be counted, but she says the city hasn't seen this volume before.

Now, if you'll remember the other day, Tammy Baldwin, Senator, sent a letter about delayed mail and how the USPS

might be screwing things up because of all the changes in programming and postmarking and all of that.

The delay comes after state election official warned voters and we did too.

You didn't listen, did you?

About mail delays due to new postmark rules, staffing shortages, other budget cuts at the post office that could have kept their ballots and indeed in some cases did from being counted on time.

Everybody told you to get your ballots in early.

10 days before the election.

But of course, listen, people are busy.

People don't listen.

People think they know better.

And they didn't.

So that's not good.

The post office, they kept checking election workers throughout the day to see if new ballots have arrived to her had arrived.

Of the 269 ballots she received the morning after election day, 17 had no postmark or no postal date and 252 were postmarked on

or before April 6th.

So in the old days that would have gotten it to you and Madison or Milwaukee was not the only place Madison had trouble to.

They received 20 to 50 ballots on election day and 107 delivered Wednesday morning.

Wow.

Curious.

Are we holding all of our mail to deliver on Wednesdays?

Is that what's happening in the middle

of these?

Wednesday's a big mail day, Jamie.

I hope so.

These

USPS postal cuts, is that what's happening?

Yeah,

we only work Wednesdays.

Here's the thing about this.

For anybody who has been screaming about fraud and elections and anybody who has been having issues with mail-in ballots, I get these were received late and they weren't even counted, but this just adds more fuel to the fire, right?

We

continue to see fuel being added to the fire to make a case for what the GOP would essentially like to do with our votes, which is negate them, which is to make sure that we aren't allowed to have them, and to make sure that mail-in voting essentially becomes obsolete and completely disappears from all corners of this country.

Reminder, though, the president and his whole family votes by mail.

This is true.

This is true.

Here's the thing too, if you're a voter and you made your way to the post office and you filled out your ballot because that's what you're told to do and you are one of those people who diligently did that and you have to now rely on the postal service, I would be upset.

I

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would be upset

because my vote was officially not counted.

I did everything I was supposed to do and now you are telling me that it doesn't even matter.

This goes to the effort to privatize the post office.

Yes, which was never supposed to be a for-profit organization because you used to be able if you if you were anywhere in Madison or anywhere in Milwaukee or any big city and you had to get something to somewhere in that area within two days it was there.

So this whole thing of you got to give it 10 days because we're not postmarking everything here.

We collect mail, we send it farther away, then we postmark it there, then it's got to come back.

It's ridiculous.

It's like taking a connecting flight that goes from Milwaukee to Miami to try to get to Tucson.

It makes absolutely zero sense.

I think the thing that bothers me about this the most as well is this is not fair for the people who voted and it's not just a frustration issue.

This makes people literally feel like the system is not working.

And if enough people start to feel that way, they're going to stop participating.

And that's where we run into real dangers as a democracy because it's not just about the late ballots.

It's about losing confidence in the process itself because elections only work when people trust them and the entire goal of the.

Republicans over the course of the last, oh, I don't know, about five to 10 years has been to so discourse so that people do not trust the election process and do not want to participate because when people participate, the Republicans tend to lose.

Yep.

All right, there's some other stuff.

We got it.

We do.

There's got to be something else.

There has to be.

And it turns out that the Department of Justice is back in the news, not because they're investigating the Epstein files.

No, no, they have decided to set their sights on something much bigger like the National Football League.

They say that the NFL is now forcing viewers to pay too much in subscription fees, according to a person familiar with this matter.

Complaints about the NFL's allegedly anti-competitive tactics were raised in a letter from Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, to the Justice Department.

just last month.

He said that football fans were made to spend almost $1,000 on cable and streaming subscriptions to watch games this past season.

I don't know where he's watching.

I'm not paying

that much.

I was going to say, I watch them all for free.

I mean, I have streaming, but I'm not paying for it for

I

don't know what's

happening here.

But at any rate, Lee added that fans also had to subscribe to multiple streaming services as well as high speed internet in addition to a traditional cable or satellite bundle.

Distributors have largely vied for pieces of sports media by carving up those rights among streaming platforms and just this year NFL games will be able to be accessed across 10 different streaming platforms from Prime Video and Netflix to Peacock and Paramount Plus.

Fans of

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other

sports leads like the MLB

be NHL and the NBA similarly have to shell out for multiple streaming platforms if they want to maximize game viewing.

Now, sports fans have shown that they are willing to spend on platforms and streamers have added exclusive games and postseason content to incentivize consumers to stay.

Beyond football, though, a DOG probe that upends how the NFL and streamers do business could actually bleed into other sports, changing how exclusive streaming and bundling works in the United States.

Is this going to be a whole one of those things where we're going to start paying more is the same amount as cable because corporations The investigation was first reported by the way by the Wall Street Journal

We'll see how this shakes out, but I want to get to this next story because you know you are on the wrong side of history if you upset the Pope.

When you get the Pope mad, you are in trouble and that's what's happening.

Pope Leo XIV may not return to the U.S.

while Donald Trump remains in office, according to a report citing a contentious meeting between a Catholic official and the Pentagon.

Now, in case you're living under a rock, the Pope is from

the United States.

More specifically, Chicago, the Chicago suburbs.

He is also a White Sox fan.

So the first American Pope, you would think we'd be very happy to have one and most people are.

So, but the Pope.

The Pope doesn't suffer fools and he doesn't like war.

He's condemned the war in Iran and said that the Trump administration's treatment of immigrants has been, quote, extremely disrespectful.

So on Monday, the Free Press reported that in the wake of the Pope's annual address to the Vatican's diplomatic corps in January, he criticized states seeking conflict around the globe.

The Department of Defense took

issue with that and invited Cardinal Christophe Pierre for a meeting.

At that time, Pierre was serving as Pope Leo's personal envoy to the United States.

Well, according to the Vatican and U.S.

officials who were briefed on the meeting, the Pentagon criticized the Pope and his statements in January, interpreting them as hostile attacks on Trump's policy.

Boo-hoo!

In the wake of that meeting, the Pope reportedly refused Trump's invitation to attend the nation's 250th anniversary events.

The Vatican of a Vatican official speaking to the free press said the Pope has no plans to visit the U.S.

while Trump is in office, saying the Pope may well never visit the United States under this administration.

End quote.

And he is from here.

Wow.

How do you how do you.

alienate the Pope even if you're not and they listen we all know that Pete Hexeth and the administration is Christian but they don't look at Catholics as Christian right they look at Catholics as other and so even Hexeth with his Easter services no Catholics need apply but if you have if you upset the Pope that sounds like something out of a Saturday Night Live skit

You've now made an enemy of the leader, the spiritual

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leader of

not only millions of people here in America, but millions of people across the globe, and it just shows what a fragile, petty, disgusting little man is in charge of this administration.

I'm just trying to fathom that news.

Yeah.

It's hard for me to wrap my brain around.

You can't.

Come on.

It's a pope.

He's supposed to be, you know, he is acting in a Christian manner, unlike some of these fake Christians.

Hey, guess what??

Parker's going?

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to war.

We'll talk about that after this on the Civic Media Network.

No vision is neighboring with Brian and Jamie.

Wow, the mouse is broken again, isn't it, Parker?

I'm not happy.

And

I was

because you

could be drafted?

Originally.

Not

mad

about the mouse.

I don't know which one's irking me more.

Wow.

Probably the draft

thing.

probably the draft.

I don't know.

There's a lot to be you have a lot in your life to be to be worried about.

Kind of

like the reverb right now.

I think it's good.

Yeah, I was I just I was like, wait, my this sounds weird.

My mic didn't sound like this a couple minutes ago.

That

one did.

That one did seem so like like so much like an acid trip like earlier today.

That one just

felt

like a little reverb.

But you know, it's fine.

Can we please now listen, we're having the COO of this company on.

Uh, next segment.

Is there any way I know, like most companies, we are in budget constraints, or at least that's what they told me when I negotiated my deal.

But, uh, is there

Is there a budget for, you can get a wireless mouse at Walmart for about 10

bucks.

I

will have it taken care of later today.

I will look for batteries more.

The batteries that are here are triple A's.

Oh, you need doubles.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, if nothing

else.

I'll look over in the closet.

Nothing else.

I'm going to make sure that there's a new mouse in there just for this

occasion Monday.

Oh, Amazon prime you a mouse and a pack of batteries.

My God.

Folks, I'm confident.

Listen, I know you're saying, well, why are you giving this?

Because everybody at every office goes through the same thing too.

It's like, for God's sake, just this would take nothing to fix.

Oh,

I had to wait for a 5 cent rebate on printer cartridges one day, one week, just so we could cut commercials and voice commercials because we couldn't print anything.

But we had to wait for that 5 cent rebate on printer cartridges to come through, not even joking.

Yes, that's a real GM story from way back in the day.

All right, well, listen, we do have much bigger fish to fry.

Even on a Friday in Wisconsin, we got big fish to fry.

eligible men will soon be automatically registered for military draft now this is getting a lot of hysterics

it is

this has been in the works for a while uh... but

There's a deeper question here, but let's give you the background of this.

Eligible men are going to be automatically registered in a military draft pool by December.

That's in an effort to streamline the existing self-registration process, according to an agency that oversees the system.

And I remember having to go in when I turned 18, go into the post office, I had to walk in there, Parker, and I had to take a pen and I had to fill out a form that said they could take me.

Old school.

I hate forms.

Old school.

I know you hate forms.

Couldn't just click something with a mouse.

Not

that yours would work today

anyway.

Parker would think he was just signing up for the draft.

He actually enlisted because of the mouse.

The mouse jumped and clicked.

The battery was dead.

Now I'm a Marine.

What?

How did that happen?

Don't worry.

We saved $6 on the company's bottom line.

That's

right.

On March 30, the Selective Service System, the federal agency which oversees the database for men eligible for service,

in the event of a military draft, submitted a proposed rule for automatic registration to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The new automatic registration process was approved by Congress under the National Defense Authorization Act for the fiscal year of 2026.

The president signed that into law in December.

Now, according to the website, the agency will implement the switch to automatic registration by December, creating this streamlined registration process.

and corresponding workforce realignment.

Okay, listen, we don't have a draft.

You're just registering in the event of a draft.

That hasn't changed.

What I wonder about is, wait, we can have a list that shows when every person in this, when every man in this country turns 18 and we can automatically put them on a list, we can't do that for voting?

We can't, if we have the same list, couldn't they just be automatically then registered to vote?

Tiffany's asking the same thing over on our text line this morning, listening

on WCFW.

Great minds Tiffany, great minds.

Autodraft registration means we can do auto voter registration, right?

you would think, you'd think if it's that easy that it could totally, it could definitely happen like

that.

Unfortunately, they're not going to allow that.

They're going to just make sure that people, that young men get registered for the draft.

Now, here's what I'm gonna say about this.

I

mean- What about the lady, where are the ladies in this whole thing?

Well, we're not allowed to serve

anymore.

If you remember, Pete Higgs

said that women

are not allowed to serve in the army

and that we have no place- I forgot you're not a warfighter.

We

have no place on the battleground next to the men.

I

forgot.

You know what?

Okay, fair enough.

I get it.

They say a lot of things.

It's hard to keep it all straight.

Listen, Rosie, the Riveter, just stay home.

We don't need you over there.

I'm saying that facetiously because I know we have listeners, female listeners who served and I know how absurd that

is.

You know, here's the thing though, when you're looking at a state like Wisconsin where we have a really strong military tradition, there's a lot of families here who have served and there's a lot of real pride that is here in this state because of that.

But I think there's also has to be a real understanding of the cost and we've seen what war does.

If you go all the way back to Vietnam, right, young men were drafted, they were sent into situations that they did not choose.

They came home with mental and physical scars that are never going to go away.

Even today when you talk to veterans,

There's a mental and physical toll that it takes, even for those who enlisted themselves

to

go into combat.

So when you take that history and you combine it with a system that I think is now automatically going to sign people up, I think that's a little bit of a different feel.

And I also have to point out the irony here.

I have to point it out, Brian.

All right,

because

we've got Donald Trump signing this into law as someone who didn't serve when he was also draft eligible.

He is also a human being who has gone after gold star families and veterans himself.

And so I find this, this a gross irony of what this, this draft process.

is or what maybe

they

want it to be because obviously there's still some gray area like there is a lot with this administration.

The history of this country is the rich and powerful sending the sons and daughters of people who are not rich and powerful over to fight their battles.

And that that will continue.

And I do but I do have to I do have to say this is not the only thing that's changing is you don't have to actually go in yourself and fill out this paperwork.

We always had to

register pardon me for service in case there was a draft so it's two separate issues but we are we are tending to get a little more hysterical only because we're at war right now so it's like when i signed up there was no war it was like okay there's no danger well now it's like oh they're automatically going to start a draft because we're in a war that we haven't come to that yet thankfully

We're going to talk about severe weather, because there's a storm brewing, and a lot of storms are

brewing, and one of them might be over this

month.

It's 835 right now.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

If you are listening in Eau Claire on 93.5 the tap or you are in La Crosse listening on WLCX or even if you're in Hayward on WBZH.

We are glad that you decided to join us on this Friday.

You're listening to Daybreak on the Civic Media Network.

My name is Jamie Martinson.

And good morning.

I'm Brian Noonan.

Well, spring is here.

We're used to rainy, windy, sometimes stormy weather, but this year Wisconsin has been experiencing a fair amount of unusually extreme weather from a late season blizzard to heavy rains that have caused flooding dangers in many parts of the state, especially in the northeast.

So how serious is this problem?

Jamie, would you like to introduce our guest?

I would.

This is Corey Hartman.

He is the COO of Civic Media.

He is also the owner of Severe Studios, SevereStudios.com, if you want to check it out.

First of all, let's start with what Severe Studios is for anybody who doesn't know.

I'll let you give a brief synopsis.

Sure.

Well, this is Severe Studios 20th year.

in business.

We do radio forecasts.

You hear them every single day on civic medias, 35 radio stations.

I've got four meteorologists that work for me and about 55 storm chasers under contract.

And we cover the weather.

We're out there streaming it live and covering it for radio, which has always been my background.

And, you know, it's that time of year.

It is that time of year,

Corey.

And

April's off to a really rainy start.

Rainfall totals well past normal, especially as I mentioned in Northeast Wisconsin.

So how big a difference is there from last year's say to this year and what effect is that having?

Yeah, last year we didn't have, you know, late season blizzards and there's lots of snow melt going on up north.

I've been traveling back and forth from the UP the last couple of weeks and the snow piles in the upper peninsula in northern Wisconsin are still gigantic.

So there's a lot of that happening.

There's a lot of spring runoff.

It's higher than normal.

You know, last year things warmed up a little bit slower.

Again, we didn't have the late season blizzards.

And

ice storms, I could not believe the amount of branches and things that were down as you drive along the interstate near Wausau.

Just a ton of branches and things that are still still down.

And you know, you can tell they had a major event there.

So, you know, power was out for days and days for some people.

So it's just been a very busy early spring and we're about to get into the severe weather season.

And you know, it's that it's that time of year where Mother Nature gets angry.

Yeah, and we'll talk about that in just a moment, because we do actually have potential for some severe weather across the plains over the next few days, including here in Wisconsin.

But we want to talk a little bit about the flooding, because there are several rivers that are actually being affected, which then affects those communities.

And you mentioned the runoff, you mentioned the snow melt, all of those heavy rains, because it has been a warm and wet March, essentially.

So how is this compounding all on top of each other?

like Columbia, Sock, Juneau, Crawford, Brown, they're all starting to already see flooding and some of the rivers are already rising.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm looking at the Wisconsin River at Portage right now and, you know, moderate flood stage, which is, you know, when people really start to see impacts and water intruding into yards and maybe some rural roads closed and things, that's expected to peak at about 17.7 feet.

You know here and and 18 feet is moderate flood stage so so we've got moderate flooding going on especially river flooding and You know the ground is saturated if we get heavy rain, then we have to talk about flash flooding

you know, which is flooding that comes on quite quickly is one of the more dangerous things.

It's one of the things that will, you know, make your phone buzz and set your weather radios off and all of those kinds of things.

So that's how serious flash flooding is.

So as we're watching for the threat of more rain here over the next week, you know, it's just going to exacerbate the situation on the rivers and the rural areas.

But also we have to watch that the guidance for the for the flash flooding.

Corey, can you do me a favor and explain?

Because I know I'm not the only one who doesn't get this.

You use the terminology to flood the flood stage or cresting at certain height.

How is that measured for people who hear that terminology and hear about the rivers rising to a certain level?

Can you

explain that?

Sure, there are hydrology gauges along every major river in the United States So there's there's there automated gauges that that basically float in the river And it pushes up on a little pole and it measures how high the water is And then those are those markers those gauges are sent to the National Weather Service And you can you can literally watch them in real time.

They're plotted

sometimes hourly, sometimes half hourly.

I'm looking at the gauge here.

I can't get it on the screen for you for some reason, but you know, the official forecast is for the river to taper back off to normal stage, which is around 12 feet in portage there by around next Friday.

So things will, will settle back down, you know, as a pretty, pretty quick peak and back down.

But when we start getting into that moderate and major and extreme flood stage, that's when we really have to start

paying attention to those gauges.

We're talking with Corey Hartman.

He is the COO of Civic Media.

He's also the owner of Severe Studios, SevereStudios.com.

Now, we've been talking about the potential for different flooding around the state.

And you mentioned, we've mentioned the fact that there is a potential, there's potential for severe weather.

And so let's look ahead a little bit because this looks like a multi-day event.

And if you are worried about things like flash flooding with the ground already saturated, with the rivers already rising or

near that flood stage.

This isn't exactly what you want to hear after the amount of moisture in the snow melt that we've already been experiencing in the state.

Right and you know on top of the flooding we have chance for hail and wind and tornadoes and all the things that come in in in springtime here, so You're looking at my kind of display here.

Let's let's just start with this morning.

So here's the radar map It's cloudy across Wisconsin.

There's a few showers earlier this morning across the region here most of that has

exited the region now pretty dry across Wisconsin and big storms stretching from we'll call it Oklahoma Tulsa area all the way up into Ottawa Canada.

It's cold.

It's it's it was not not warm overnight temperatures in the thirties highs today are only going to be in the fifties, maybe even upper forties in the northern part of the state.

So it's not warm.

But what we start getting this time of year are these warm fronts that rotate up in here.

And you can kind of see that for those that are watching on the civic media YouTube channel, you know, eighties down in Arkansas fifties up here that that warm front situation.

is going to move northward over the next few days.

And when it does, it's going to start bringing the threat for severe weather to the north.

So as we take a look at tomorrow, we've got a general thunderstorm risk across Wisconsin.

Severe weather will be down in Texas and Oklahoma, where you would expect it.

But then that threat starts to shift northward.

So here's day three, which would be Sunday.

We've got in the western part of the state a marginal.

risk.

That just means one or two storms might go severe.

But then when we start to look at day four, day five, day six, and that's the start of next week.

So you're talking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, each of those three days has a pretty significant threat for severe weather across at least the southern half of Wisconsin.

And that's because

you know, a warm front is going to lift northward.

And when you get a warm front in Wisconsin that strong in April, you have to pay attention.

Now, Corey, you not only study storms and the weather, but you chase storms too.

And we know, we know this is the time of year where across the plain states you mentioned, Oklahoma and Texas, Nebraska, there, that's where we usually see them.

But

They seem to be the the front seem to be spreading wider and storms seem to be getting more severe over the last couple of years.

Are you are you seeing that to be true?

And what do you think is causing this without getting, you know, before

people?

go to talk about climate change?

You know, I've got a lot of friends in meteorology that study the pattern study, you know, climate change, those types of things.

What I can tell you is from doing this for the last two decades is I have seen a shift of the severe weather patterns to the east.

You know, this time of year, we should be talking about Sioux Falls to Dallas and we are.

So this is this is standard tornado alley.

But more and more, especially during the winter season, the secondary season, November, December down south, it's Chicago to Mobile.

And that that has been a pretty

standard eastward shift for about the last decade.

We find ourselves down in the trees of Dixie Alley instead of, you know, out on the plains where you can see the storms.

So, you know, the storms also seem to come less frequently, but when they do show up, they are stronger.

The tornadoes are stronger.

They're F2s, F3s, F4s.

And, you know, that is, there's a sign there.

I can't tell you what's causing it.

I can't tell you if it's an ebb and a flow I do know that we had our warmest March on record or one of the warmest marches on record here in the upper Midwest And the global the global temperature and we're talking about climate change.

We're talking about the global average temperature We're not talking about oh, it was 80 degrees today or it was 30 below, right?

We're talking about the global average temperature and that has been

slowly rising but very quickly rising in just the last decade.

We're talking with Corey Hartman.

He is the COO of Civic Media.

He's also the owner of Severe Studios, SevereStudios.com.

You can hear the forecast from Severe Studios on your favorite Civic Media stations.

Now, next week, as we talk about severe weather, we talk about your experience as a chaser.

Next week in Wisconsin is Severe Weather Awareness Week, the 13th through the 17th.

And so as we talk about this potential for severe weather across Wisconsin, or at least in portions of it,

And I know this is something that you like to talk about how people should be prepared and what we should be doing to prepare ourselves for any sort of weather emergency.

I think the biggest thing that people need to do is have ways to get watches and warnings.

And we'll talk about the difference between those in just a second.

But if you don't get the information, if you don't stay weather aware,

That's when bad things happen, especially overnight, right?

And really the only thing that's gonna wake you up overnight is a NOAA weather radio.

You can still get those at hardware stores and Walmart and wherever you wanna go to get those.

They're pretty cheap, 30, 40 bucks, and you've got an alarm that'll shake you out of bed.

at two o'clock in the morning if you program it, right?

The second thing is know the difference between a watch and a warning and there's a meme that goes around every season that shows flour and eggs and all of this kind of thing and that's a cupcake watch.

We have the ingredients to bake cupcakes, right?

And then you show the plate with the made cupcakes.

That's a cupcake warning.

That's because Corey's about to eat all the cupcakes.

So

The watch means conditions are right.

We have the ingredients.

A warning means you have to do something.

And that do something is usually get to the basement, lowest floor.

If it's a tornado coming, you want to put as many walls between you and the storm as possible.

You know, flooding, you just have to get to higher ground, those kinds of things.

And next Thursday, we do two tornado drills here in the state of Wisconsin, 145 and 645.

And that's next Thursday, April 16th.

So that's just kind of a reminder.

You'll hear the sirens go off.

You'll be like, Hey, it's not Wednesday at noon.

And that's just a reminder to you to make sure that you have your tornado shelters cleaned out and you've got a weather radio and you've got a plan for you and your family.

All right.

Well, Corey, thanks so much for all the information.

And once again, severe weather.

Week is coming up April 13th to the 17th.

So as Corey said, stay weather aware.

We will do that.

We will stay aware of everything.

Corey Hartman, COO of Civic Media.

He's the owner of Severe Studios.

SevereStudios.com is the website.

And we'll be sending an invoice for this new mouse and some batteries so that Parker can finally take care of the show.

But that's probably for an after-show meeting.

We'll talk about it.

When we come back, we end the week on a high note with some Dairyland.

You're

Kathryn Lake

listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,

civicmedia.us.

I hope that you are having a great Friday.

I don't know if I love this intro so much that it makes me happy, or I also know that it's the last segment of the week, so it also makes me happy.

It could be a dual

thing.

And none of the stories are sad, so that makes us happy.

No,

it's awesome.

And we don't mention Trump at all.

It's the best thing ever.

It's any of these stories.

Amazing.

Nothing.

Amazing.

It can be done.

It can be done.

We're going to prove

it

right now.

All right, now these are all happy, happier stories from around Wisconsin.

This one hit very close to home for me.

And probably a lot of you, if you have daughters or if you were a daughter.

American Girl fans get ready to take a trip down memory lane because the beloved brand is relaunching eight of its original historical character dolls in honor of its 40th anniversary.

The American Girl Historical Characters Collection will be available for purchase starting, well, it started on Tuesday, so...

Each of the relaunched dolls was designed to be, quote, as close as possible to the originals, including their signature outfits, accessories, and packaging that according to American Girl.

More than a product launch, it's a nostalgic reunion, inviting longtime fans to reconnect with the stories and dolls that shaped their childhood.

In 1986, American Girls founder Pleasant Roland created the 18-inch dolls, which were inspired by various eras of American history.

The brand was acquired by Mattel in 1998, has been treasured by girls for generations.

Each doll in the 40th anniversary historical characters collection comes bundled with her signature meat outfit, accessories, and a book plus packaging inspired by the 86 design.

I, as a boy who had four brothers, had no idea that the American girl dolls actually exist.

Then

We gave birth to a girl that we named Molly, which is, ironically, one of these dolls.

I was going to say, she had a Molly doll?

Oh, please.

Yes.

And there was a race.

It was like a nuclear arms race.

My parents had to be the ones to get it first.

Oh.

And Molly is one of the dolls that is being brought back.

Kathryn Lake

Oh, nice.

Molly was a

1940s.

She was from England, and she helped with the... You get a whole book, and they all have books.

It is...

Huge business it is these dolls and we had so many.

Did you go to the

American doll stores?

Do you have stock in the American doll

stores?

Oh the American girl the big one downtown Chicago You can go you can take your doll to the beauty

shop.

Mm-hmm You can go have lunch Molly and my mom had gone and had tea at the thing where you bring your doll You can buy the same kind of clothes.

There were so many and the thing was

Molly never really played too much with the Dolls, but we had

every time we had Bitty Baby, we had all the, every time she had to get the doll of the year.

So if you are a collect, this is a big deal for American girls, big deal for Wisconsin, because American girls were born here.

Yes, that's right.

And I will say that I'm old enough that I missed out on the craze, but I remember the books.

The books

came out when I

was still in elementary and middle school.

So I do remember the books fondly.

I mean, it's great.

It was great history lessons for young girls.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Good for them.

Yes.

And it all

also teaches them business, because as you said, it is a very big business now.

This is a great story, and I am actually very familiar with this because I participated in this for numerous years.

Volunteers for the Baraboo and Portage Area Habitat for Humanity Chapter are doing minor home improvement projects for free until the end of May.

Habitat for Humanity Wisconsin River Area started its second annual Brush with Kindness.

This was something they were doing beforehand, but then it's actually become branded and become a really big thing.

And it's a phenomenal organization in sock and Columbia.

County.

The initiative lasts through May 30th and has expanded to Baraboo this year after strictly operating in Portage last year.

Volunteers are helping with painting garages, planting flowers, fixing ramps, sightings and decks and helping clear out debris and unwanted materials at homes in both cities and some outlying areas.

Now the initiative has about 15 projects set up so far according to the Habitat for Humanity Wisconsin River Area Development Director John Peruzzi.

There is no defined maximum number of projects

is looking for more volunteers as well as sponsors.

Volunteers are scheduled to clean up the Baraboo Riverwalk from 9 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

on April 22 or on Earth Day.

The first Brush with Kindness initiative this year was to build picnic tables for Riverhaven Homeless Shelter in Portage.

That

is a great organization.

I love Habitat for Humanity so good.

If you're in that area, volunteer.

All right, we gotta finish with this story because if this doesn't make you feel good, you are dead inside.

Stella is a

dog in howard she ran away uh... she was shot she lept off an overpass uh... and yet miraculously something is

Somebody's watch it off for Stella.

Somebody witnessed this.

She was taken to an emergency veterinarian put under the Wisconsin Humane Society campus care Green Bay campus care.

She didn't have any broken limbs.

The veterinarian found bullet fragments from a gunshot wound.

She they found internal bleeding severe damage to her lungs and chest likely from the fall.

They don't know how she was shot.

She's an Akita Husky mix.

She had to undergo major open chest surgery.

She got a CT scan several

raise a chest tube, a thoracentesis to remove air from her chest, and guess what?

She's fine.

Stella is happy, sweet, affectionate.

She loves facelicks.

The family that she ran away from was going to have to

get move anyway, and they were distraught, but they ended up giving her to the Humane Society.

So Stella may be up for adoption pretty soon.

But that that dog is more like a cat.

Yeah, that's

nine lives for Stella, the dog from Howard.

That might be like 20

lives all in one, but that's incredible.

And the fact that she's so happy and healthy now and will probably be up for adoption at some point to get, because she's only about a year old, so she's gonna

get a chance

at her forever family, which is the best.

And it shows you dogs, no matter what happens to them for the most part, they'll still come back happy and go, hey, I'm still pretty cool, why don't you give me a chance?

So Stella, we salute.

And I've seen pictures of her, she's gorgeous.

gorgeous girl so

I can't have any more dogs don't tell me how pretty she is I saw the picture I know I don't put no more dogs here hey the week is over we did it I'm sure there will be a lot more to talk about come Monday but we're not gonna do it right now no because we got to go thank you for listening this week thanks for being a part of the show I'm done

Jamie

I think it's easy just to say, it's 8.59.

Thank you for another great

Kathryn Lake

week.

This is Dave Rick with the Civic Media Network.

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