August 2010

Tuesday August 31, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

I sure hate to see summer go, but here we are again. Tomorrow is the first day of September.

We have some interesting weather coming up this week. Today looks wet, tonight too. Then we get a short break, and late week should bring more rain. The NWS says the weekend will be nice and in the upper 60s and low 70s. I haven’t had a chance to check for myself and I have one foot on the path, so for now I will take their word on it.

The night skies finally got dark starting Sunday night. The last few nights have featured great stars until the moon rose.

I saw my buck again last night. He was about a mile farther north this time, and instead of running in front of the truck, he ran along the road looking for an opening. He still looked pretty nice.

It has been a busy few weeks for me, and apparently this one isn’t any different. I have to run off, but I wanted to at least cover the basics first. Sorry.

RJB

Here are some events..

Friday August 27th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

Hey that’s not later.. that’s tomorrow.  Sorry, but it will be worth it.

Let us start with the easy stuff. The weather looks excellent for the weekend. We are under the center of a big area of high pressure and bluebird weather and mid-80s is what is on tap.

As the high pressure slowly moves east it will warm up a little. Highs today look like 82-85, tomorrow about 85, and Sunday in the upper 80s. Overnight lows should go from upper 50s to low 60s.

Like I said it looks like a bluebird weekend. It is the second last weekend of summer and a great chance to go camping/rafting/tubing/kayaking/fishing/hiking/biking/BBQing and all of the other fun stuff that we do around here. I caught on the Kosir’s blog that tubing is on special, only $5.

Rafting this weekend should be good for late August. The Menominee is saving the day with it’s dam controlled flows and giving people great raft trips.

The Peshtigo is just below normal, which at this time of year is a little rocky. Normal flow is 187, we are at 177, and I like to see it over 200CFS. It sn’t as bad as it could be, but it is low. We did not see rain this week for the first time since June.

The night skies will be nice too. We have a big bright waning moon that will be up all night. Last night it was aligned with a bright planet or star and made a good show, the night before I caught a planet a little after sunset.

I got an e-mail this morning that you will want to know about. Steve at Athelstane Weather set up a cool new web cam. This one is a very sensitive high res camera pointing up at the northern sky. It is actually a 5 megapixel digital camera with a very light sensitive lens (F1.8).  He said that it might wash out a little because of the bright moon, but it works great on dark skies.

You should be able to see stars, meteors, and the northern lights very well with it, as well as the current sky conditions day or night. Athelstane weather is already a great resource. I use it all of the time. This new camera is a great addition.

Someone asked about the lack of northern lights a while back. That should be getting better soon. Solar cycle 24 has been very late and slow to ramp up. It does not look like a real active cycle, in fact they are comparing it to the Dalton Minimum. Other articles that I have seen are looking for a peak of about 75 on that chart for solar cycle 24.

However, more recently solar flux is up a little and there are a few small sun spots. It is still very low, but it is on the way up. As it progresses the chances of seeing northern lights will increase.

I did not light the wood burner yesterday morning. It was cold enough, but I manned up and slept through it. We saw a low of 44.2F, according to Athelstane Weather. It was, to use a technical term, nippy.

We do not have any rain in the forecast until next Wednesday. As the big high pressure moves off to the east, eventually the southwest flow on the back of it will come our way. Look for increasing temps and humidity after the weekend.

There is debate about how much rain the back of the high will bring. The model I saw last night showed active weather with the jet stream right over us, and several inches of rain possible. The TV this morning is only showing minor rain. My bet is on the first option. If the jet stream sits over us for a couple of days in those conditions we could clearly see some rain add up.

In events we have the Oconto County and Marinette County Fairs this weekend. Marinette County’s is in Wausaukee, Oconto County’s is in Gillet.

Well, I am off to go and dive into another really full day. Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday August 26th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

Dude where’s my Carhartts?

Chris and I have discussed at length my claim to have run the wood burner at least once every month of last year. June was early, the Saturday of the 3rd week in July was in the mid-40s, and I am sure that we had a night like tonight last August.

The wood burner isn’t burning, but my bet is that it will be in the morning. As of 2am, Athelstane Weather has 46 degrees, and it is dropping 1.3ºF per hour. That is about right for a Guinness, but on the cool side for August. Sounds about right for a popple fire in the AM too.

We are on the northern side of a massive high pressure system. Between the cool air from the north and the clear skies permitting radiational cooling, it is the coolest night in memory. Last night was close with 48, and I will testify that the open window above me as I slept left me chilly in the morning. It was different rolling up in the blanket instead of kicking it off.

The cool and clear nights usually are good for star gazing. We have an incredible globe of stars on display on nights like this. This week we also have a waning moon about 4 days off of being full. It was good and bright tonight, but I still saw a planet in the west sky a little after sunset.

Speaking of looking up, Jack Horkheimer died this week. He is the goofy guy on PBS that sat on the rings of Saturn and told us what wonders the night’s sky would hold for us. He turned me onto a lot of cool skies that I would have otherwise missed, and you sure couldn’t knock his enthusiasm.

Jack Foley Horkheimer , June 11, 1938 – August 20, 2010

RIP buddy, and Keep Looking Up!

A look at Chris’ event calendar shows that it is County Fair Week for both Marinette and Oconto Counties.

Aug. 26 – 29 Marinette County Fairgrounds Wausaukee Marinette County Fair

Demoliton derbies, truck and tractor pulls, animal judging, exhibits, bands, family entertainment and carnival

Aug. 26 – 29 Zippel Park in Gillett, Oconto County Fair

Demoliton derbies, horse, truck and tractor pulls, animal judging, exhibits, bands, family entertainment and carnival

Sunday we had fun when we went on Kosir’s sit on top kayaks and paddled from the resort down to Caldron Falls Flowage. It was a great day for it, and  a bunch of us went and had a ball.

One guy was fishing on the way down and hooked a tree. I couldn’t resist, and promptly asked him if that was a big ol basswood that he caught. Yes it was very fun, and plenty scenic and relaxing too.

Since then I have really filled up the days. I just finished dinner and it is 1:45am. Tomorrow looks full too.

In my travels I noticed that the deer are dumber than usual running out in front of the truck. I don’t blame the rut since it is a little early, and they were all does.

Something that struck me as a little odd was when I spotted a flock of Canadian geese in the neighbor’s field yesterday. Unless those are local birds it is a little early isn’t it?

I looked at the upcoming bow deer season dates and saw that it opens September 18th. On the way there I lso saw that we are in an area of management zones for bucks only this gun season. I didn’t investigate beyond this map. http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/HUNT/DEER/dmu.htm

I apologize for not getting a Tuesday report posted. As I mentioned I have been really filling the days up this week. last week I finally made two updates on deadline, and this week it didn’t happen again. I did update the snowmobile page though.

That is about it for tonight. I will return with the weather and any updates later today.

Have a good night and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday August 19th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

What a week for weather! Temperatures have been mostly in the 70s this week, and very pleasant. Sign me up for about 9 months a year of that.

Last night we had another episode of ‘heat lightning’. The sky was flashing with distant lightning while we had stars shining and no rain. I would say that the show lasted at least 4 hours.

We did finally see one area of rain come in the wee hours and really pound on the roof for a few minutes. I got up and checked the radar, and it was a tiny little blob, but it rained with good enthusiasm.

As it turned out, there was a line of storms to our north that was the source of the sky show. The line went through Forest and Florence Counties in a mostly east to west direction.

Much like last Saturday’s sky show, the ‘heat lightning’ was really an over the horizon storm. It always is. Heat lightning is a bit of a misnomer.

In a storm the cloud tops can go to 30-40,000 feet. The lightning in those tops can project up to about 100 miles. We get no sound or rain, but the sky flashes.  In the case of last Saturday night we were seeing lightning off of a storm near Crandon, last night it was up in Forest & Florence Counties.

It is possible to have a dry thunderstorm, where the rain hits a dry layer in the atmosphere and evaporates before it hits the ground, or convection alone triggers the lightning. Generally we don’t see those conditions, that is more out west or in unusual conditions like updrafts in forest fires.

In our neighborhood ‘heat lightning’ is an over the horizon thunderstorm. If there is enough convection to produce lightning, generally somewhere not to far away is getting wet. Like I said before, lightning can project a flash up to 100 miles away.

I recall a storm a few years back when a line of really strong storms did the train track thing, tracking one after the next about 40 miles north of here. The near constant lightning off of the storm was so bright that I could walk around the yard like it was daytime. They ended up with 9″ of rain in one night, we got nil, but it was a heck of a show.

It looks like we have a great weekend in weather ahead. Once the rain clears out Saturday morning we should see nice weather with temps in the upper 70s and low 80s.

In between now and Saturday morning there could be some active weather. We are expecting showers and thunderstorms tonight, Friday and into Friday night. Only one model shows us in the lowest band for rainfall after 6am Saturday morning, otherwise they all show us dry for the duration of the weekend.

I am not completely sold on the amount and placement of the rainfall. The models are showing a good bit to our north and south, anywhere from 0.75-2.75″, while we are in the 0.5-0.75″ band pretty consistently. I am not sold that it is that cut n dry. Predicting that we will get 0.89″ while a place 50 miles away will get 2.68″ seems a little exact for the very inexact art of predicting thunderstorm placement.

At any rate, it is expected to get wet over the next 36 hours or so, and clear out in time for a nice Saturday and Sunday. That is a good thing, because we have some great events this weekend.

On the top of the list last time was the modified garden tractor pulls at Curve Inn this Saturday. I went to one of those, and it is pretty cool. Sure there are Gilson and John Deere tractors, but the gear heads are well represented too. Some of those  ‘tractors’ can sport a 350 or 400hp v8. It is a good show. I will see if I can find some pictures later.

Other events..

August 21 Stephenson Town Hall
Hwy X Twin Bridge Rescue Squad Annual Rummage/Bake Sale
8 am – 2 pm

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August 21 Village of Pound Park
Parkview Ln & Cty Q CCBA POUND THE PAVEMENT Walk/Run
7:00 am
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August 22 McCauslin Brook Golf Course
Lakewood 3rd Annual Nicolet Clinic Golf Outing
Registration 10am – Shotgun start 11am – Includes Lunch, Dinner & Awards
Raffles & Contests throughout the day

I don’t have a lot to report in the wildlife area, the last couple of days have been kept pretty full with work.

I did spot a pretty nice buck last night a few miles north of the ranch. He had decent size and nice headgear. He decided to run out in front of the truck at full ramming speed at the last second. Thanks to his speed and my reaction time, the only evidence of our encounter are some skid marks, and that buck still walks.

It was really really close. If it was a gravel road I’d be eating backstraps for lunch and wishing that I had finished welding up my brush guard. As it stands there is a pretty nice buck roaming the neighborhood.

Well  the TV is showing me temps outside in the 68-74 degree range at surrounding stations, so I am off to go outside and tackle some projects. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB