Monday March 28th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

We have a lot to talk about today.. Rafting, snow, weather, and sun shovels.

The weather over the weekend was colder than normal. Our normal high/low temperatures right now are 46 and 23. Yesterday in Rhinelander the official high/low was 29/-5. Athelstane Weather reported a little more moderate temps and 37/-1.3. Normal low temps of 23 replaced by sub-zero temps borders on the unusual, but is not a record. The record in Rhinelander is -15 from 1996, and we did not threaten the high temp record of 77 from 1910.

Winter has not given up the fight yet. Looking at the 16 day GFS model, I don’t see a 60 degree day in sight. This week will stay colder than normal as the high pressure behind the snowstorm lingers and brings us Canadian air. The highest temp in the NWS weekly forecast is mid-40s for Saturday and Sunday, with the balance of days being sunny, but in the upper 30s or low 40s.

Next week the GFS is showing more cold weather behind a storm for this coming Sunday, followed by a couple of Alberta Clippers and reinforcing shots of cold air. The Sunday storm looks like a 3-6, or more likely a 4-8″ snow, and the clippers look like snow too.

When I look at the GFS I look at the upper air temperatures. When I see the blue 0ºC line in the neighborhood, I usually expect a 45-55 degree day if the sun is out. The farther south it is, the colder we will be. In the 16 day model the zero C line stays well south of us, making that 60 degree spring day unlikely. It also stays far enough south to suggest that any storms will be (mostly) snow.

I saw a few snowmobilers around last weekend even though the trails were closed. When I saw the trails across Parkway by the Park N Ride north of C and up by Wolfe Ln and Parkway, they looked great. When we were on Landing 11 Rd yesterday there was a better snow/ice layer on the road than there had been all winter, but only in the sheltered spots. Sunny spots were mud. If it wasn’t for the sun eating sunny spots and roads, and for the soft ground under the trails, there would be plenty of opportunity for snowmobilers to ride.

When we were going up Parkway to the Camp 5 bridge to check out the Peshtigo River there were sheltered places in the forest that had snow piles up to the mirrors on Chris’ Pathfinder. There is still a lot of snow in sheltered areas.

The sun is way too hot at this time of year for the snow to stay long in sunny areas. Darker areas are already burned through where the snow was dirty or stained.

I decided to apply this, instead of the snow shovel, to the 16-18″ drift in front of the wood shed. I called it the sun shovel. I sprinkled fireplace ash over the snow on the walkway and let the sun do it’s work for a day. I made some footprints on the way back in, exposing new white snow. Those white sides survived and left artifacts..

Yes it is a little messy, but I have special shoes/jacket/gloves just firewood, so it doesn’t get far. It worked though, the footprints are on the ground, the white snow next to it is 10″ or more deep.

There is a lot of that going on with roads and sunny spots. In the case of roads they are dry of snow other than sheltered spots that still hold ice, snow or slush. The gravel roads vary from frozen to mud in sunny spots. There are also some wicked frost heaves and pot holes popping up.

We headed up to the Camp 5 Bridge Sunday to take a look at how the Peshtigo River break up is progressing for the opening weekend of whitewater rafting with Kosir’s this weekend. The river had some open spots along the fast side, but that is about it. It was still pretty frozen up.

On the way to check out Farm Dam where they put the rafts in, a peek through the trees at the river along C in the big valley found it open along one side downstream in some faster water, but frozen across upstream of there. Farm Dam was frozen tight.

There are passages in the ice through the faster water and rapids stretches, and it is breaking up down by the bridge by Kosir’s Rafting.

Will we go whitewater rafting this weekend as planned? Hmm.. It doesn’t look good at the moment, but it isn’t out of the question to have a lot change over the course of a sunny week. The river can surprise you.

It is not uncommon to move opening weekend back a week due to ice, but you just never know. The guys from Kosirs will be scouting it this week, and I might too.

What I kept thinking about when I was seeing all of the new snow north of here is that the river will really roar when it does go out. All of that snow and ice stored up with the cold weather keeping most of it there later than normal adds up to a firecracker about to go off. In a few weeks when we see a couple of 65 or 70 degree sunny days, all of that is going to melt fast and really get the river cranking.

On top of the already nice base flow a fast melt should bring some extreme water for whitewater rafting on the Peshtigo River. I am looking forward to April rafting.

On our way by on Landing 11 Rd yesterday we saw that the Caldron Falls Flowage was already drawn down. They do that to help break up the ice and to help make room for any sudden rush of meltwater down the Peshtigo River. There is a lot of ice to break up, several people in the last week were telling of bottoming out ice augers and not hitting water.

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

RJB

Friday March 25th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

Here is my update from just minutes ago on Iron Snowshoe’s website..

A lot of people have been asking if the trails will reopen after our foot of snow this week. After some discussion the answer is no. The frost has started coming out of the ground and a lot of the trail base remains soft under the snow and there is a lot of standing meltwater on the trails. Between the trails being to soft to run the groomers, the potential for ATV damage on soft spots, and the standing water in a lot of spots the decision was made to wait for next year.

It is just as well, the March sun already has bare spots burned through on plowed roads, and the foot of snow has been reduced to 4-6″ or less already in open areas. If we could have gotten this snow earlier in the season we could have ridden it for weeks. At the end of March it is just too late.

More to follow in a little while.

RJB

Thursday March 24th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

My totals for the storm here were 13″ original fall amount, and 11″ settled yesterday afternoon.There were some much deeper spots that had drifted in. I’d guess the drift in front of my wood shed at 16-18″.

It was a pretty sturdy snow, but thankfully not the really wet heavy stuff. It was not much fun to shovel or plow, but it could have been worse.

It was not that really sticky snow that comes with an intermittent mix of rain and the giant snowflakes and takes down branches and power lines. They had that down toward Green Bay where they were closer to the rain snow line, and they had some power outages. Being farther north we missed out on that and the tree damage. It still rolled off of the side of the plow more like clay than powder.

I wasn’t crazy  when I heard thundersnow Wednesday night. The rumbles that I heard were real. The TV news showed the sky down by Green Bay just lit up with big lightning. We only got a little of it, and it wasn’t constant enough for me to see the flashes like that. It would rumble, I would head to the window or door and it would be dark and snowy. I would go back to the computer and rumble rumble rumble. After the third trip to the window it was funny per the Charlie Brown and the football clause.

It was a good layer of snow and even with 4×4 and nice tires the truck was challenged by it.

After my mid-day update I headed outside to plow and shovel.

Plowing came with challenges. The snow was deep and heavy, but the ground under it was soft still. It was hard on the truck, and I had a breakdown that set me back an hour and had me rolling around in a foot of snow. I did a basic plowing job, leaving the rest for the late March sun to clean up in the coming days.

I came inside about sunset, got some dinner, and the next thing I knew it was 1am. I think all of the playing in the snow wore me out, so there was no evening report. Tomorrow promises to be physical too, as I dig out the drifted in wood shed, wood piles, and paths.

I never got close to the snowmobile to even dig it out. I do have plans on buzzing around the driveway and maybe pulling it into the shed for the summer tomorrow.

People have been e-mailing in to see if the trails will open up because of the snow. They closed in Marinette County as of Monday. The latest word that I have is that because the frost is out of the ground in some spots and it is muddy and there is a lot of standing water, the trails will stay closed. A lot of the trails allow ATVs and they could rut up trails pretty bad.

The next question is can you get a ride in on town or forest roads. I am not sure about that one. My first thought is that they are open to snowmobiles as part of the trails, or access to them, and contingent on the trails being open. I am not sure about that one. It might vary from town to town. Maybe someone who knows can weigh in on that.

I think that we are going to have a very limited window of opportunity anyway. The late March sun is wicked, and we are in the 4th week of March and 8 days from April. It is going to be sunny for the next 4 days and even though we are looking at a hi/lo temperature of about 29/5 (normal is 40/18) we will see significant snow melting. I’d bet that the sunny plowed areas of my driveway are dirt by noon today, and we will see a lot of snow consolidation.

Whitewater Rafting…

The whitewater rafting season at Kosir’s opens in 9 days on Saturday April 2nd. Right now it looks like we are in for a good early spring season once the river starts to open up.

Last year finished up really wet, and when all of the wetlands that feed the Peshtigo River froze up, it was running well above normal. That whole system is well charged with water. Slug says that there is a lot of snow up in the watershed, and this storm alone brought an inch of rainfall equivalent to Rhinelander where we are now 0.83″ above normal since Jan 1.

That is all a good set up with a high base flow and a good snow pack. A couple of warm days or some rain will set it off pretty good. If we had some thunderstorms the river would roar. Before it froze up, the river was running way above normal. We had +20 in September. It is running about +5″ under the ice, but it looked a little higher going by.

It holds a lot of promise, but I am worried that our firecracker won’t go off on time. The high pressure behind the storm looks like it will keep us cold for a while, limiting melting.

The river is making passages in the ice in faster moving areas and the calm stretches are starting to melt. It still has a ways to go. Hopefully 8 days is enough.

Right now my guess is that it will open on time, but just barely, bringing some cool ice formations for the first trippers, and water in the 9-12 range..

I am looking forward to a good spring for rafting.

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

RJB

Wednesday March 23rd, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

1pm

It continues to snow. I haven’t been outside to play yet, but looking out the window I would put us into the 12-14″ range. That verifies pretty well with the Athelstane Weather web can where it looks like 13-14″.

I guess that I should have put the snowplow onto the truck yesterday. LOL.

A lot of people have been e-mailing in to see if snowmobile trails will reopen since it is expected to stay cold right through the weekend. That is up to the county snowmobile alliance and member clubs.

Between the ground being soft yesterday and how fast the snow will get eaten by the sun tomorrow, I am not sure that they will reopen them. There is certainly enough snow now.

I have to tackle a few things before I can go out and play in it, so I have to keep moving. I will be back later.

RJB

8:30am

SNOW!

I saw on TV that the schools were closes from New London to Niagara, pretty much any of them in the northeast 1/4 of the state.  A look outside shows why. The snow is still coming at a good clip, and we have a lot down.

This one is going to be hard to measure. The front porch railing has about 2″, but the drift on the hood of the truck is as high as the top of the windshield. A look out back at the drum in the sheltered area behind the woodshed shows close to a foot stacked up, probably 10-12. A check of Athelstane Weather’s web cam shows about 10″. I haven’t been outside yet to check my 5 gallon bucket.

We are not done yet. The radar shows more snow on the way, and it continues to fall at a good clip. Areas to the south of here will likely report higher totals being close to the rain snow line. The top number on the morning news was 15″ in Shawano.

Our snow is heavy enough, but it is not flocking the trees as heavy as the stuff on the news down in Green Bay. At that point WPS is showing pretty minimal power outages. We are golden around here, but there are outages toward Marinette and along the lake toward Green Bay and over by Merrill and Rhinelander.

I am pretty comfortable with expecting the storm to bring a foot or maybe just a little more by the time that it clears out later this evening. Then get ready for the cold. We are looking at upper 20s for highs and single digit lows until about Sunday.

Ahh yes.. Spring.

6am

A 5:30am look out of the front door finds easily 4-6 down, but that is in the front driveway, a pretty windswept area. I am guessing that it is probably more like 7-8, and I am looking forward to seeing how much drifted into calmer areas.

We did have some thunder snow last night. It started about ten minutes before midnight and it rumbled occasionally for the next 20 minutes or half hour. The snow intensity about then was amazing, but it did not photograph well.

So far the power hasn’t even flickered.

More to follow..

RJB