This text examines the physical features of Wisconsin that shape the state's climate - topography, mid-latitude location, and proximity to Lakes Superior and Michigan - and meteorological phenomena that affect climate, such as atmospheric circulation and air mass frequency.

The land that is now called Wisconsin has a place in weather history. Its climate has ranged from tropical to polar over hundreds of millions of years and even today, that s the seeming difference between July and January here. And Wisconsinites have played key roles in advancing the science of meterology and climatology: Increase Lapham helped found the National Weather Service in the nineteenth century; Eric Miller was the first to broadcast regular weather reports on the radio in the 1920s; Verner Suomi pioneered tracking weather by satellite; and Reid Bryson has been a leader in studying...