April 2011

Thursday April 14th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

It is a lot colder today than it was yesterday or earlier in the week. The TV weather is showing a temperature drop of 15-25 degrees in the last 24 hours across that state. We are in the upper 40s right now, about as warm as it is expected to get over the next week or so.

The Peshtigo River is running big right now. The latest from Kosir’s and the USGS shows us at about a +25″ . The 12 year record for today is 1,740cfs, and we are running at 1,600. That is big water for sure. It is at about what looks like the peak on the graph. Based on the slope of it I wouldn’t expect it to come down much for the weekend. Right now my guess is about +20 for Saturday morning, maybe a little higher.

The weather might not be that nice this weekend, but the water levels for whitewater rafting are awesome. That is good, we are expecting a lot of people on the river this weekend, including the DPoD group, one of the crazier groups that visit Kosir’s. It should be a fun weekend on the river, but..

We have a weekend storm to watch. Right now I am seeing it coming as rain for late Friday night and early Saturday morning, changing to snow as the storm progresses east during the day Saturday. The QPF on the storm looks like between 1/2-3/4″. There is not much snow expected now, but there is a fair amount of cold air behind the storm, so I’d be ready for a surprise, like maybe as much as 3-6″ of snow Saturday.

Temperatures over the weekend look to be around 40 for Saturday and mid-40s for Sunday. Low temps should be in the upper 20s to around 30. Winds with the storm will be a factor Friday and Friday night at 15-25mph, but they are shown calming down a little for Saturday.

Sunday looks like the nice day with mostly sunny skies and mid-40s for temps.

The frogs in the pond have started up but they are having a rough week. They started with the vreep vreep last weekend a little, but then the pond froze over. They were out in force when it was warm out, only to get frozen over again. This morning the croakers are out, but the peepers remain quiet.

Yesterday I took a long cut on the way to some business around Athelstane and I got a look at a couple of county forest roads north of C. The roads are drying up pretty well. I only hit a few soft spots. There were a couple of loggers moving equipment around the sites, and it didn’t look too deep with mud. Some sheltered areas like the heavy cedar swamps still hold snow. Less sheltered areas are drying out pretty well.

Last week someone asked if ATV trails might open early. That is still very much up in the air. The drying came a long way last week, but there is still snow in places. Since it is a system wide opening decision, the least areas are the guide. I wouldn’t bet too heavy on an early start, especially looking at the temperatures on the long term outlook.

About the biggest sign of spring along my route was that some of the willow switches were starting to change color as the top growth prepared for another growing season. There were a few moths, and the standard deer and ravens.

Around the house the frost out is coming along. The wood yard is free of snow and firm enough to walk on without getting too muddy. It is almost time to get back to work out there. The driveway is good with the exception of a couple of sheltered soft spots.

There are usually not a lot of events this weekend, but there are a few..

Saturday 4/16-

Richard’s Supper Club Hwy 8 – Dunbar

Friends of the NRA Fundraiser Banquet
Starts at 5pm – Dinner at 7pm
Auction & Prize Drawings to follow

Sunday 4/17 Rene’s Dining Room by Popp’s Resort

11th Annual Iron Snowshoe Snowmobile Club Banquet
5pm cash bar – 7 pm Dinner
Gun Raffles, Prints, Cash Drawings

It has been unusually quiet around here the past couple of weeks. The roads and bars are empty of even the usual retirees. I am not sure if there was a rapture or if the mother ship came and took everyone home or what. It is usually quiet this time of year, but the past couple of weeks have been abnormally so. Support your favorite local businesses, they could use it right now.

That is about it for now. We will be watching the weather outlook for changes for the Friday/Saturday storm. I am not quite sold on the current model solutions.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday April 11th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

That was quite a weekend around Kosir’s Rafting and Rapids Resort. The Peshtigo River defied lower predictions and the Saturday noon whitewater rafting trip found a river that was at a +12. By Sunday it was + 16 and rising, and at the moment the 10pm Monday USGS gauge shows that it is at +24 and not done yet.

The people that came whitewater rafting had a blast. The river was big and wild and there was plenty of action. There were some great flips and swims at First Drop, and I was there with the pictures and video. (I will have some to share a little later. ) The river was running good and there were a lot of happy people around. I even met a group of site visitors on Sunday that came to give it a try. Nice to meet you guys!

The weather was pretty nice over the weekend. Saturday was warm and mostly sunny. Saturday night brought a couple of waves of thunderstorms, but it cleared out for Sunday. The rain brought fog Sunday morning, but the sun helped warm it up later. It wasn’t as nice as Saturday, but it was still a decent day for this time of year.

Later Sunday afternoon the rain redeveloped, and later on at night we saw all of the big storms that spawned tornadoes in seven or eight counties in Wisconsin.

One of those lines of severe storms went through Forest and Oneida Counties and hit the Peshtigo River Watershed. There were reports of a tornado and damage around Armstrong Creek and a few areas west and a little south of there.

The radar showed the storms dropping 2-3 of rain in a short time in the central and upper Peshtigo River watershed. It was a mean line of storms and they probably dropped a lot of rain.

When I was walking down to the river Saturday there was a lot of snow and ice in the woods. The thunderstorms Saturday night humbled a lot of that for Sunday, and brought a spike in the river that we are seeing now. We are not done yet though. There are still places in the woods with over a foot of snow.

Between the rain and T-storms Saturday night and Sunday night plus the melting of the snow from the warm days, the folks that want to raft the Peshtigo at high water have a lot to look forward to in the short term.  My guess at the moment is that we will go over +30 by Wednesday and be in the 20s for next weekend.

The weather for the week and weekend looks very interesting. Today and tomorrow look nice with pleasant days reaching about 60. Around Wednesday a cold front is expected that will bring light rain and a pretty significant drop in temperatures.

The GFS has switched gears in the latest model run. We were looking at a Friday storm that would clear out about noon Saturday. The latest has us in for, are you ready for this, a rain changing to snow storm. It looks like some rain Saturday morning, then as much as 3-6″ of snow. If it changes over sooner, it could be a lot more snow.

Since that model has made so many changes in the last 24 hours, I’d like to see a few consecutive runs of it settling on an scenario before I take it too seriously.

Here are a few rafting photos from the weekend..

Apparently the gallery that I had here used too many resources on the server so I have to prune it back. I will have to work out something different, either making the pictures smaller or using less of them. For those of you on Facebook, the full gallery is on my page there.

Have a good morning and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday April 7th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

We have a beautiful day going outside, easily the nicest of 2011 so far. There isn’t much for wind, the sun is out, and it is almost 60. There is a little melting going on, and places that had a head start are firming up the ground. After a couple of weeks of colder than normal temperatures, it finally feels like spring.

After pulling long hours on the computers the last few days it felt good to escape the house and get a little sun. It was only steps outside that I spotted the first flutterby of the year, and even got a picture. Even my elderly 17 year old cat went outside, and she hates the cold.

Here are a few pictures..

If I didn’t have so much on my plate this would be one of those days where I’d like to find a cooler and a grill and a few friends to goof off with.

This weekend looks like a GO for whitewater rafting at Kosir’s. Zac and Jason have been scouting the river all week and have been cutting obstacle trees. It will be close but it looks like it will be open enough to go for it. People running this weekend will get to paddle past huge ice islands of 3-5′ thick slabs of ice. I’ve had the chance to do that before, and it is pretty cool and otherworldly. Check out the pictures from the Kosir’s FaceBook page..

The river looks a lot different up by the rapids than it did down by the bridge this afternoon..

We missed out on both chances for rain this week, so the river won’t be as big as it could have been. Right now it is running at about +5 @ 467cfs.  With yesterday and  today’s melting we should be adding a few inches. I was looking for 10-12 in my last update. Chicago the Guide said +9 for his prediction today, and I think that it is a pretty good one. We should be within an inch or two on either side of that.

Friday and Saturday look like they will be partly sunny and in the upper 50s. That is some nice weather for opening weekend. Saturday night into Sunday morning we are expecting some rain, but there is a chance of getting most of Sunday in before the next wave of rain hits.

I have been pulling some long hours getting equipment ready for the weekend’s rafting photos and videos. I have a couple of computers that I am running a Linux operating system on, and I gotta say I really like it. The box that I am using now is running a PClinuxOS with the E-17 desktop. It is fast and stable, and it looks good doing it. There are still a few bugs to work out like where my photo enhancement program is in French, but that is pretty minor.

The XP based movie computer on the other hand is being a pain. It works, but it needs to be faster. I am grumbling about my SCSI 320 stuff because I really want one of these.

Well I have wandered off topic again, so it must be time to go. Have a good one and thank you for visiting!

/RJB

Tuesday April 5, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

The storm was about as expected. It started with 2-3″ of snow and then it got warmer and turned to rain and drizzle. That dropped the snow down to almost nothing by Monday afternoon. Monday was breezy and there were a few flurries. Athelstane Weather showed 0.31″ and the Rhinelander NWS put it at 0.28″. My wild guess number would have been 0.5-0.75 based on how sloppy the snow was.

A lot of people are excited about whitewater rafting with Kosir’s opening this weekend. Normally we start rafting the first weekend in April, but the thaw is running late and the river was still iced up. Now the question is, will it break in time for this weekend, and if it does, how high will it be?

If it rose at the rate that it rose Monday, it would be about +9″ and about 600cfs for Saturday. We are not expecting a lot of rain this week, but we will have some, and days in the upper 40s and into the 50s.

With some extra melting my guess is that it will be more in the 700-900cfs range, roughly +10 to +14. If the rain from Tuesday night or Thursday night/Friday surprises us or we see some warm days it could be more.

The next question is, will it be enough to flush out any ice blocking the way? There is a ways to go, but it could happen. The river was up 10″ higher 9 days ago, then it fell to about zero because of the thaw, now it is on it’s way back up to (by my estimation) +10 or 12. The lifting and dropping of the ice will help to break it up.

Will it be enough? As Mark commented, there is still some pretty solid ice in the calm stretches and above the rapids. My best guess is that it will open enough, and that people will get to see some great ice formations along the trips.

The GFS forecast model holds big things in store for us a little farther down the road. Starting about Sunday afternoon it is showing two big storms coming early next week one after the other. That should set us up with big water for weekend number 3, and there is warm weather and another big storm on tap for about the 20th too. It looks like we will have a late start but a great month for spring rafting.

The owl that was in the pictures Sunday was a barred owl, so named for the horizontal black stripe (or bar) on it’s tail. Apparently right about now is their courting season, and that would explain repeated daytime sightings. According to the EEK site, they grow to be 21″ tall with a 4′ wingspan. Cool stuff.

Driveway season is in full swing. The storm didn’t help matters any either. There are a lot of places around here that are deep mud. Gravel driveways are bad enough, backing the truck up to the work shed or wood yard would leave bug ruts.

Beyond that I don’t have a lot to offer today. I have been mostly inside working on the photo and video computers in anticipation of the rafting season.  I have three that I run on Linux and two that I run on Windows XP. I have been trying out various Linux distributions. I have also been fixing and building computers and doing wireless network stuff for people. I will tell you all about it in an upcoming page.

IN the meantime have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB