There are a lot of happy people around Kosir’s this weekend. The Peshtigo has continued to rise, and is about +9 right now. With the rain last night it will go up a little more, and already has risen some. The Menominee River is high too, running at 2,470cfs. Whitewater people should be in heaven.
Yesterday turned out pretty decent for weather. It was overcast, but I was in shorts and without my umbrella all day. About 1am you could see some lightning in the distant sky. It must have been some pretty good thunderheads, the storm was still 100 miles west over by Wausau. I filled up the day pretty good, so I was fast asleep when the rain came. It must have rained pretty decent, there were puddles and a new rise in the river.
So far today has been hit and miss. The morning was overcast with some mist falling. After noon it has stopped misting and the clouds are letting a little more sunlight through. There is some minor rain showing up over toward Vilas County, but it isn’t much, supporting the NWS estimate of a 20% rain chance today.
Well I have to zoom and take pictures of another rafting trip. Have a good Sunday and thank you for visiting!
The river got big this afternoon. We are up to +8 and 600CFS, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing the rise. People are having huge fun. Tomorrow’s water levels are a big question mark. Plus 9? Plus 12? It will be very fun.
These are so fresh that the people in them are still on the river..
RJB
12:22pm
Live From Rapids Resort…
I only have a minute before the noon trip with Kosir’s goes out, but I wanted to update and let y’all know that the Peshtigo River is great and rising fast. The river is now past +6 and climbing fast. Check out the slope of the graph, and compare it to this morning’s below.
The rafters on the 9am trip had a good time and there were some good flips, swims, and people disappearing into waves. Not much getting stuck tho.
The weather is overcast but there is no rain between here and Minnesota. There might be some tonight. When I watched the noon weather forecast they said that there were equal chances of it coming north by us, staying mid-state, and hitting south. I wouldn’t rule out rain tonight, and if it hits, an inch or so.
Sunday holds prominse in the forecast. They think that the rain will clear out mid-morning and leave us with a decent day. We shall see.
Anyway, the Pesh is the best that it has been all year, and it is rising fast. They are using some rafts. Come raft at 3 today or 10 or 1 Sunday with Kosir’s.
Gotta run!
RJB
830 am
If you are interested in rafting or paddling this weekend you should do so. The Peshtigo River shot straight up last night from 350cfs to 500 in a couple of hours. That tells me that there is a lot more coming.
We also dodged the rain last night, but the watershed got an estimated inch.
If you are into the whitewater and aren’t here, you probably should be.
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.
Serving from 7:30 am to 12 noon – Celebrating June Dairy Month
June 27
McCauslin Brook Golf Course
Lakewood
4the Annual Charity Golf Outing
Register at 11am – Shot gun start at Noon – Raffles & Prizes – Dinner to follow
Proceeds to the LeRoy Butler Foundation, Boys & Girls Club of Langlade County and Local Food Patries in Lakewood, Townsend & Whilte Lake
To pre-register contact
Animal’s Bear Trail Inn (715-276-6698) or The Beach Club (715-276-2582)
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..
Trees leaning over the road by Caldron Falls Rd and W
Tree on a garage 6 places north of Caldron Falls Bar on Parkway
Puddles by Popp’s boat landing suggest heavy rain
WPS crews are busy today
Town of Stephenson crew cleaning up a tree on Newton Lake Rd
Trees down coming into Crivitz on A from the west
Trees on power lines on A west of the post office
Trees down coming into Crivitz on A
Power lines down in Crivitz, both foreground and near the cones
Gypsey moths denuded this forest
Near Bushman & W
Trees down by Wheel Inn
Power lines being fixed just east of W & Parkway
Near Wheel Inn
Thunder Lake Mini-Store
Thunder Lake Mini-Store
Thunder Lake Mini-Store
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.
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.
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.
