June 2010

Thursday June 24th, 2010

5pm update

Like Tuesday, today was a bit of an abnormal day. Again the usual stuff is late. Here we go..

The power came back on a little after 2pm here. The WPS crews have been hammering away, taking the number of customers out of power last night from over 18,000 down to about 2,000 today. There were a lot of trees and lines down in Crivitz.

I have not been west or south yet to see what Mountain/Lakewood/Townsend/Carter/Wabeno is about. They did have a lot of outages over there, with Lakewood zip electric customers 98% out last night. There were probably areas that way that saw heavy winds, I just haven’t been west yet.

Folks planning a whitewater twist to the weekend will be happy about the storm. The rain that fell locally brought the Peshtigo River up 3.5″ already, and it did rain in the far reaches of the watershed, so more is coming. Otter Creek and the Rat River were both swollen when I was that way today. Both the Peshtigo and Menominee will certainly be at a fun level for whitewater rafting this weekend. Get it while it is so nice!

The weather for the weekend has the skeptic in me raising an eyebrow. There is pretty good agreement among the models and forecasts that we will see 1.5-2″ of rain between Friday Morning and Sunday evening.

The strange part comes in that there is good agreement among them that the rain will come Friday night and Saturday night, and that Saturday will clear up mid-morning and give us a nice day. It can happen, today is spectacular. The NWS only has us for a 30% rain chance Saturday.

All expect it to rain pretty good Saturday night.

Sunday is a bone of contention. The NWS and NAM are looking for the front to clear out slower, leaving us a wet day. The GFS and HPC go the other way, clearing all of the rain out in the morning.

My best guess is that we will have nice days.

How about some events..

Saturday July 3rd the Dark Horse Band featuring Tommy Greywolf (formerly fidlist for Brooks & Dunn) will be performing here at Rapid’s Resort. The show starts @ 9pm. These guys come very highly recommended by me. Catch this one if you like good country, and especially with Tommy G.

One last thing to share.. This wet pattern has been very good to our D-3 drought. By my numbers we have had 6-7″ of rain in June, and there should be an inch or two between now and Monday. It is just what the doctor ordered.

The Peshtigo and Menominee are actually running above their mean and median, something unfathomable a month ago when the Menom was setting 98 year record lows. Likewise wetlands are refilling, lakes are refilling, trout streams are running, and stuff can actually grow. Yee ha!

That is about it for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

4:30 Update

I took a ride up to the Old J and Harper Rd neighborhood to see how they fared in the storm. There was virtually no indication of strong weather other than some erosion tracks on steep gravel road hills where the rain ran off fast. It looked like the town was already there to fill some spots. You folks on Nighthawk, Poacher’s, Fisherman’s, Hemlock, and that neighborhood are fine.

12:pm Update

I took a ride this morning to see what the scoop was. My path took me from C & F on C to Parkway, Parkway south to X, X to Newton Lake Rd, Newton Lake to A, A to Crivitz to W, W west to Caldron Falls Rd and back here.

From here to Parkway there was no obvious damage. South on Parkway was OK until just after the snowmobile trail crossing. On that corner there were a couple of trees down. Farther south past the Sportsman’s Club near the big curve there was a big tree down.

Heading south on Parkway there wasn’t much until down by Caldron Falls Bar. The 6th place north has a tree on the garage roof. It is the house north of the folks that found the small bunny last winter.

The rest of the way down to X was pretty normal. There was a tree branch on one of Popp’s Resort’s cabins, and they were making short work of it. From there we headed east to Newton Lake Road. About 2 miles south of The Woods restaurant the town guys were cleaning up a few small trees that fell onto the edge of the road. The rest of the ride to A was uneventful.

Heading south on A the houses east of Shaefer Road had some trees down. Farther east near Richlein Excavating there were a couple of bigger oaks down along the road and had one point probably blocked it.

Coming into Crivitz proper the tree damage was immediate. The Dudkiewitz farm lost a big spruce, and there were many trees down, some still on power lines, along the stretch between the town limit and the post office.

Heading out of Crivitz on W there was an occasional tree down here and there, mostly old ones that I wasn’t sure that the storm toppled. A couple of miles east of W and Parkway, about a mile east of Bushman Rd there was damage. There was intermitant damage from there to the other side of Parkway and W, again including trees on lines.

West of Parkway and W there was hit and miss trees down, but the definitely had some wind come through. There was  a tree down by Racer’s and some down the next house west of the Wheel Inn. A little farther up was the worst damage that I saw where the Thunder Mountain Mini-Store had the roof ripped off and thrown onto the other building.

We then headed north on Caldron Falls Road. There were a few damaged trees here and there, along with leaf debris, but no damage to dwellings or widespread damage. There was no sign of damage north of the fire danger sign all of the way up Landing 11 Rd and back to Hwy C.

The power remains out here, though the grid ends at Parkway North, and Jungle Jim’s and the BP still have power. Across the street the Big Bear Outopst is on a different grid and does not.  Crivitz still had trees across lines, so they might be a while before the re-energize that grid. The power outages were hit and miss. The gas station on X & Kottke did not have power, The Woods 2 miles east did.

Generally most of the area up here did not see damage. Some pockets did, like Crivitz, and the Thunder Lake Mini-Store. The vast majority did not. I have not been north yet, but friends up by Old J and Harper never lost power.

Some pictures to follow..

RJB

8:45am

Greetings and welcome!

I only have about 10 minutes of gas left in the generator so I have to be fast.

Crivitz did take some pretty good wind damage. It took an hour to get 141 opened and 2 to get both lanes open. The news showed downed trees and a few smooshed cars. Fox 11 WLUK had crews out there this morning. Hit their site for the vid and updates.

The power company has their work cut out for them. Most of the area that I cover 141 to 32 and 64 to 8 is still out of power. (Link below in last night’s report)

From what I could gather there was damage from east of the flowages SE toward Crivitz, mostly blown down trees and the stuff that they landed on. There is no visible damage here.

I saved my last quart of gas for morning, and it was a good call. Also a good call was that high E refrig that actually runs off of my 1400 watt Honda generator. That ran this morning again for an hour, you guys get a quick report, and I am off on a quest for more gas and to see what there is to see on the way. I will be back asap.

RJB

Wednesday June 23rd, 2010

We are still here..

..But running on generator power.

11pm-

The storm came through at about 6pm here. It brought heavy rains, strong winds and swirling clouds. It was not destructive in my immediate domain, but it obviously took down trees and power lines. We just crossed into hour 4 of the power being out, and judging by how many people are out, it might be a while.

WPS is reporting over 18,000 people out of power, with over 13,000 in either the Wausaukee or Wabeno grids. Crivitz (54104) was 92% out, but are up 30% in the very recent past.  Lakewood (54138) remains 97% dark, and here in 54104 they are again making progress with 57% out. I have huge respect for the WPS line crews around here, and they are obviously bouncing back quickly again tonight.

The news said that Crivitz is under a curfew tonight with only emergency responders to be out. They need to sign in at the Crivitz FD. They have trees and lines down, and roads closed as a result.

While this storm was a little spooky, it did not do widespread damage other than trees and power lines that I know of. I sustained no damage here.

The video below came out a little disappointing. You really can’t see the clouds quickly rising and the cold air spilling off of the front of the cloud. We did get the tube cloud, and about 1:10 into the video it starts swirling. You can hear in the audio why I eventually was sent running for cover.

There were a couple of times during the heavy stuff that I wanted to get footage of the trees rocking and the heavy rain, but an open window was a bucket of water in the face, so no.

I would estimate our rainfall in the 1-2″ range. Areas north, like the Peshtigo River watershed saw very heavy rain (1-3″). There will be some rafting this weekend. There was also some localized flooding, not so fun for some people.

Once the TV news buddies get on scene in the morning and I get a better chance to look around I will update on the storm. Right now it mostly sounds like trees and power lines down.

If I find a lot of damage I will again volunteer to check on people’s places. My bet right now is that it won’t be needed. I don’t think it is as bad as it sounds. The dawn will tell.

I will be back as soon as I have some info, probably late morning unless somw news breaks in the meantime.

RJB

9:50pm

Here is a a YouTube video of some of the mean looking clouds coming in. Look for the tube cloud to fold and start swirling on the center left about a minute in.

Check out the other vids on my YouTube channel..http://www.youtube.com/Riversportdigital

9:30pm

The Village of Crivitz is now under curfew. Only emergency personnel are allowed out due to village wide power outages, closed roads, downed trees,  and downed power lines.

I am working on a Youtube vid of the clouds coming in and swirling. It should be up in a few minuutes.

9pm

Between the Wausaukee and Wabeno grids WPS reports 87 outages for 13,623 customers in the dark in those two districts, and almost 19,000 total out. The news said that there were a lot of trees down in Crivitz. It sounds like the line crews are in for a full night.

7pm

We had a line of storms come through a little while ago that was pretty ugly. We had tornado warnings, and the conditions were right for it. I am not sure if the video of the incoming wall cloud turned out, I will check in a little while.

Anyway the storm came through with ugly rotating clouds, some good wind gusts, and some really heavy rains. It was interesting for a while but it was not a tornado.

More soon..

RJB

Tuesday June 22nd, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

The weather forecasts for Friday and Monday didn’t quite work out the way that they were expected to. The Friday storm that was supposed to come our way with potentially severe weather ended up from about Madison south and very strong south of the IL/WI border.

In the case of Monday’s storm it was the opposite. It was expected to stay downstate and miss us, but it didn’t get the memo, and we saw some pretty good rains.

The rain Monday night was heavy in spots. About 10pm I was near High Falls and the roads had huge puddles that pulled the truck around and occasionally splashed over the hood. They saw a lot of rain in a short time. I actually saw lightning flash a few times, something that we haven’t had a lot of so far.

Speaking of predictions that didn’t come true, I missed my river level guess by about 2″ last weekend. The river still came up and was great for rafting, but without Friday’s rain it was lower than I had predicted. No big deal, people had a blast.

Between yesterday’s rain and the rain possible tomorrow I would expect continued good water levels for rafting this weekend.

The insect world is alive and well this second day of summer. The gypsy moths have been chewing a lot of oak trees that I saw in my travels. There are a lot of bare or near bare crowns in the oak forests this week.

I still have not had a big issue with mosquitoes yet this year. The one spot that I walk that is like a Deep Woods Off! commercial isn’t that way this year at all. I am not aware of being victim of a gator bite in the last two weeks. A few horse flies tried buzzing around in my new short cropped hair last weekend, and the wood ticks are still present in force, but it has not been a particularly buggy summer.

As I mentioned above it is the second day of summer. After this it is all downhill for length of day until about the third week in December. For now we get wonderfully long days and for the short term, sunsets north of due west.

Critter sightings were up a little this week. Sunday morning I saw some geese float down the river and get surprised when they were swept into the rapids. They launched from the river right before they went into the big stuff. I can’t say that I have ever seen that before.

Other critter sightings include a badger, the standard deer and turkeys, and a small black bear about 1/4 mile from the house. The big moths have been tripping the motion detector on the flood lights, or more likely it was the bats running sorties on them.

In two weeks on July 5th the State of WI smoking ban goes into place. There will be no more smoking in bars, restaurants, or workplaces. It is a topic of great emotion on both sides so I am going to avoid it other than letting you know about it. Personally I will be trying the E version. I tried a disposable one from the casino smoke shop. It wasn’t good, but it showed enough promise that I ordered a better one.

Today was a hot one. We had to be in the 90s or close to it. There is also some humidity with dew points in the uncomfortable range of the low 60s. Between the two yoiu would think that we would get some T-storms. We will eventually, but today the atmosphere was too stable to get thunderheads brewing.

Later tonight and into tomorrow we will indeed see some rain. There is a lot of discussion on if the storm will swing south like Friday did or nail us like Monday’s storms. There are all of the ingredients for some strong storms, so someone will see heavy rain, T-storms, and maybe some severe weather. Right now it looks pretty statewide, it might not be an either/or situation.

Late Wednesday and Thursday look a little cooler and with less chances for rain. Friday brings the beginning of what could be a wet weekend. The GFS is showing several waves of rain associated with approaching low pressure hitting over the weekend. QPFs are in the 1-2″‘ range.

Because it is so far out and the models have been struggling lately I am going to suggest watching later forecasts for changes. It might not be all that it is cracked up to be. It could just as easily go south, or come early/ late weekend as hit us. The NWS also advises looking for future updates, and for now offered a 40% chance of rain across the weekend.

There are a few events this weekend. Here is the list so far..

Saturday July 3rd the Dark Horse Band featuring Tommy Greywolf (formerly fidlist for Brooks & Dunn) will be performing here at Rapid’s Resort. The show starts @ 9pm. These guys come very highly recommended by me. Catch this one if you like good country, and especially with Tommy G.

My apologies that I was so late today. It was an unusual day. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday June 18th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

One quick final update..

It looks like the severe stuff should stay mostly  south of us today and tonight. Checking the RUC model, it is showing less and less of a storm threat for us tonight with lower CAPE and helicity numbers than before. The threat level rises as you go south of Green Bay, and south of the IL/WI border, wow.

At the moment not much is going on here. It is a hot humid day with some high clouds. There were a few stray showers in western WI this afternoon, but nothing closer than about Wausau. The focus of the storm seems to be from about mid-state south, and still in western WI.

It is my guess that things will pick up late afternoon between about 4pm and sunset. That would be our highest risk window. Behind that the TV forecast animation only shows stray showers after 10pm, and clearing skies by midnight. There is a line of clouds on the satellite showing that we could still see a line of storms later this afternoon and early evening.

I am not saying that we are off of the hook, but the severe weather chances and rain chances look less ominous than they did yesterday.

It looks like my Peshtigo River prediction might fall an inch short. Kosir’s is reporting a +4″ level right now, I predicted +6″ for tomorrow noon. I needed an inch bump up from Tuesday’s rain and only saw 0.3″ so far. The other inch coming from the storm could very well still come. It doesn’t really matter, the rivers are both big fun this weekend at current levels. The late week 2″ boost was just a bonus. It could still come.

Have a good weekend!

RJB