September 2010

Wednesday September 22nd, 2010-Special Weather Update

Greetings and welcome!

We have some weather to talk about. The storm for tonight and tomorrow looks like it will bring heavy rain to far northern WI and the UP.

How much? Opinions vary, but the range of 2-4+  inches has been shown consistently in the various models and forecasts.

The HPC QPF is between 2.5 and 3″, with the 3-4″ line pretty much cutting our area in half. Generally those guys aren’t too excitable, so it has my attention. The NAM model is showing a fair bit of rain too.

The GFS model, which sometimes get caught with convective feedback and overstates rainfall estimates, is the most reserved today. It is only showing us in the 1.5-2″ range.

The NWS is looking for 2-4″ of rain and has issued a flood watch.

The overall consensus is that it is going to rain a lot between tonight and Friday.

The area rivers are already running at record highs. The Peshtigo is running 489CFS, breaking the ’02 record of 376cfs. The Menominee River is running at 2,960cfs, breaking the ’97 record of 2,330cfs. Both rivers are on the way down at the moment, with the Pesh peaking at 700cfs last weekend, while the Menominee went just over 5,000cfs.

With the high rivers, soggy ground, and lots of rain on the way, the flood watch is appropriate. The Peshtigo is wild enough that it isn’t much of a threat. The Menominee River could be a different story. Their watershed looks to take the brunt of the storm, and the reservoirs are pretty full. Batten down the hatches Slug.

I guess a paddler’s alert is in order for the whitewater folks too. The rivers stand to get higher than they have been all year this weekend and into next week. If the rain comes as expected, the Pesh could easily exceed +12, and the Menominee well over 5,000cfs.

This is all based on a forecast, and those don’t always work out. Right now we have pretty good agreement from our guidance sources that it will rain a lot. I am a little skeptical of the high totals, just as I would be if this same storm were 3 months from now carrying 2-4 feet of snow. It does merit a heads up though.

At the moment there is pretty good agreement that the storm will time out well for the weekend, with the rain clearing out late Friday and the follow up storm not expected here until Sunday afternoon.

That is about it from here. I am off to enjoy our nice day, and maybe locate the old water wings.

Have a good Wednesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday September 25th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

It is one beautiful day in the north woods today. We are partly cloudy and about 75 with a little wind. There are a few gnats, but other than that it is about perfect out there.

Last night was on the warm side too. There was no fire in the woodburner, golly I’da ended up medium rare. I see a low of about 55, not too far off of the highs of the past week or so in the mid-50s and low 60s.

What is up is the big high pressure from the hurricane in the Atlantic is camping off of the SE coast of the US. The clockwise flow is sending a lot of warm air up from the south, along with some storms.

One storm was last night, but it didn’t last too long. It mostly made yesterday dreary and damp, followed by a line of overnight thunderstorms. We have another one, a pretty good one, coming late week. That should hit us between Wednesday night and Friday morning if things stay on time. The good news is that it should clear out in time to leave us a nice weekend.

At the moment the GFS and NAM forecast models have the weekend clear with the exception of a chance of rain late Sunday. The NWS version has a chance of rain Saturday, but they are struggling with a wide diversity of scenarios among the models. Until I see something more consistent develop between the models, I am sticking with nice weather influenced by high pressure behind the Thursday storm.

If in doubt, check the HPC. Ok, they throw a new twist into it. They have the late week storm lagging well into Friday, and the second storm a concern for next week. Again that leaves the weekend clear of rain, so it is on our side.

Be aware that both possibilities exist and check later forecasts. We kind of agree that there is a disturbance, it is the timing that is in question. We should get clues by the late week storm being early or late what to expect behind it for the weekend.

I am late today because I was on the road this morning. I did get a chance to check out some fall colors. When we took C to Wabeno we had a good show the early maples are starting to come in nicely, and some of the bright orange, purple, and yellows are starting to show. Some of the hillsides were getting that patchwork of color quite nicely.

As we headed down 32 going south, there was a considerable falloff in colors between Townsend and Carter. North of Carter should be great for the weekend and south of there will be starting up. Down by Mountain there are a few splashes, but not like farther north.

We have some good events this weekend.

We will be at a horse trail ride in Mountain on Saturday. If anyone is interested, hit the feedback tab and I will gladly fill you in.

Here are other events from Chris’ list.

Not much to do in fall around here, eh? There is more coming with bar hopping mini-golf where each bar sets up their own unique put put golf hole, a hay ride, and all sorts of stuff. We have a l0t of events in the fall.

The firewood mission is coming right along. The pile that I split last week stacked out to about 2 3/4 cords. Added into the 2 1/2 that I put up early summer, I am well on the way to the goal of 7 cords of oak, plus the piles of popple & basswood for early & late season quick fires. I will make the cold season now, but I like a little margin of error. The electric heat costs $1.08 an hour to run. Owie. Keep cutting!

Yesterday I established why I shouldn’t pile the wood in neat 1 cord stacks 8′ high. Jenga! LOL. I said a bad thing, but it was pretty funny. I knew what I was getting into.

It looks like my Thursday report will be a Friday report. Chris will be here, but I will be traveling on business.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday September 16th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

We have a cool and wet day outside today. We had a pretty good double storm come through Wednesday and Wednesday night that left well over an inch of rain (1.3″ in my pan). With occasional showers, it is still soggy outside.

There is a little more rain possible later today and overnight, but after that the weekend should be good for weather. We will see a little below normal temps. Our normal hi/lo is 67/45. Today we should be around 63/45.  Saturday looks like clouds and 60/40 for temps. Sunday again looks 60/40, but partly cloudy. It is not a bad weekend for opening of all of the hunting seasons. The woods should be quiet to walk in with the wet forest floor.

The fall colors are not too far along yet right here at the house. There are splashes of yellow, but the big show is yet to come. The trees between here and Wabeno were farther along than that last week already, so I would expect some areas to have some color. I haven’t traveled too much since our last visit, and just don’t know.

Here are some events for the weekend..

There is also a meeting of the Bear Point Sno-Cruisers snowmobile club. From Slug–

The Annual meeting of Bear Point Sno-Cruisers is at Newingham’s Saturday September 18 in Wausaukee at 1:00. This is your last chance to be a charter member. One of the things that means is your a founding member and you have a special number you keep as long as you renew each year. Let a friend know. After this weekend you can still be a member for sure but not a charter one. Lunch is up to each person bills will be separate for each to pay on their own. We will have samples of clothing to look at but waiting for venders to give us quoits for apparel. We need to be able to order one or two pieces at at time but still get a fair price. Sorry but we are a young club not much money in the kitty to order a quantity to have on hand. Look us up on  www.silvercliff.com then go on the big snow page. We look forward to seeing you and having some good conversations. We will have guests with some interesting things to talk about. THINK SNOW SLUG

Note that the Kolorama Kickoff did move to the Lakewood Zoo this year. Also noteworthy, you could win an ATV in the Near North Raffle.

I do have a new resident. The hole I dug for the septic guy quickly became a den for something that burrowed into the side of it. The hole is easily a foot across and pretty deep. Groundhog? Porkie? Badger? Skunk? I don’t know, I haven’t spotted it yet. I am going to check tracks in a little while and come up with an eviction strategy. It might be an interesting afternoon. (Honey, do we have any tomato juice?)

That is about it from here. Have a good weekend and good luck hunting!

RJB

Tuesday September 14th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

I am getting an early start this morning because I will be up early and out working.

It is firewood season and I rented a splitter. I got a nice start on it yesterday, but I still have a lot of wood to split before I take the splitter back. I figure that I am about halfway on the oak, and there is probably almost that much basswood and maple left to split.

It doesn’t look like much but to put it in perspective, the stanchions on the right are  5′ wide and 6′ tall, and the pile goes back a ways, easily 15′.

I surprised myself a couple of times yesterday. One was that the load last week that I thought was so huge, actually was. It took 3 1/2 hours to split just that load. The other part is how much 16″ plus diameter oak I managed to stockpile early in spring. Four hours of splitting did not cover half of it.

It is a happy sore, since I appreciate both the wood and the exercise. Like I am fond of saying, firewood is the health club of the north.

It is a cold night tonight. The NWS says that we could hit upper 30s or low 40s. We have the low 40s. Tomorrow night looks a good bit colder. The NWS is looking for 32-37 and areas of frost.

The week ahead looks like it will mostly be on the cool side with highs around 60. The best chances for rain come about Wednesday night and again on Friday & Friday night. The weekend looks nice, again with a hi/lo of about 60/40ºF. Our normal hi/lo in Rhinelander is 68/46.

The fall colors are under way. A trip to Wabeno a few days ago on C found a lot of trees already starting to turn colors. Some were still drab as the green left the leaves, some were starting the color show. It is here, but still early in the show.

In addition to being a wood splitting madman this week, I have a couple of projects coming up with making the Internet go a little farther. In one case I need to shoot WiFi about 600′ between buildings. No problem. I can supposedly send it over 10 miles with the right equipment.

Likewise there are a few customers with weak cell and OTA Internet signals, and I have solutions for that. I will be out doing site surveys and getting equipment set up for that mid-week.

In critter sightings.. There was a small buck and a lot of does spotted since our last visit. They are obviously starting to play in the road a little more. Also seen along the road was a small bear, a lot of turkeys, a few squirrels, and a fair number of dove and grouse. The coyotes have been sounding off a lot this week.

Which reminds me.. we have a lot of hunting seasons opening up this weekend. Chances are that you know about that if you care. If not I will refer you to my post on it a week ago and to the WI DNR site.

The Bear Point Sno-Cruisers Snomobile Club will be having their first annual meeting at Bear Point Yacht Club this coming Saturday. You can still sign up for the club and be a first year charter member, but tick tock, year two starts Saturday.

In addition to the business of the meeting, there will be a good bit of socializing and getting reacquainted with our snowmobiling friends. It should be a good time. I know Chris is looking forward to it. The calendar is cleared. Car and health willing, we will be there.

Here are more events from Chris’s event calendar..

I recall seeing a poster that the Kolorama Kickoff was moved to the Lakewood Zoo. I will want to get verification on that.

Events coming up that probably aren’t on the list are a hayride poker run with Thorntons 10/3, a lawn mower poker run with Twin Bridge 9/21, a horse ride in Mountain 9/25, and the indoor mini-golf at the bars & resorts around the flowages area, date TBA, but it will probably be early or mid-October.

The Shindig in the Pines bluegrass festival at Pine Acres Resort is coming up soon too, watch for details.

One last note, gas prices jumped 20-30 cents a gallon in the past few days. From what I read, they had a pipeline problem in IL. No big deal until that pipeline supplies two of the major regional refineries that make our gas.

The price jump will tighten up demand temporarily while they get a grip on the situation and start making gas again. It should not be a long term hike for the pipeline issue, but it is still hurricane season, and almost time to start the change to winter blends, so all bets are off on gas prices.

That is about it for this morning. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB