May 2011

Thursday May 5th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

When we last visited it was snowing a little and struggling to get into the mid-40s. Things are looking up a little. Today we have a little bit of rain and temps in the mid-50s, but the rain is just about over.

The weekend looks nicer. Saturday should be cloudy and about 60, and Sunday looks sunny and in the low 60s. There will be rain in the region Saturday, but it looks like it will stay south of us. The wind does not look like a factor, the NWS prediction for Saturday is for 5-10mph winds. At that point we have a green light for a pretty decent weekend.

There is a lot going on this weekend. Sunday is Mother’s Day. Saturday is the opening of the fishing season, Friday the ATV trails open, and Saturday is the Kentucky Derby too. The whitewater rafting by Kosir’s will be in full swing with nice water levels too.

I got a press release from Marinette County this week that the ATV trails will reopen for the Spring/Summer season tomorrow, Friday May 6th. A lot of people are happy about that, and I expect to see a few 4 wheelers around this weekend. The ground will be a little soft and damp from today’s rain, so NO dust! Yee ha!

Saturday is the opening of fishing season, and it looks like the lakes and rivers are ready to go. The lakes that I have seen are free of ice, but might be a little cooler than normal with the cold Spring and late ice-out.

Saturday is also the running of the Kentucky Derby. If you are into that sort of thing, grab your fancy hats and a dish to pass (optional) and head over to Bear Point Yacht Club, where they will be having a party for the occasion.

Sunday is Mother’s Day. It is unusually timed this year. Mother’s Day is always the second Sunday in May, and since the first of the month was a Sunday, it is early this year. Don’t get caught by surprise fellas.

We are looking at a good weekend for whitewater rafting by Kosir’s this weekend. The river should be running good in the upper single digits. That lets the customer choose between a 2 person raft or one of the single person funyaks. On Sunday they have a special where Mom gets to go rafting FREE on Sunday with a paid trip. The weather is supposed to be very nice, so keep that in mind.

In spite of our cold start to the week this week the greening of the lands and forests has started. The grass in the ditches and fields is greening up nicely. The pussy willows are out, and a lot of trees are starting to bud or emerge with new leaves. FINALLY the drab season is coming to a close.

This weekend offers a treat in that the insect world is slow to emerge, but yet we will have T-shirt weather. I am not saying it will be bug free, but we do not have many of the normal nasties like mosquitoes or ticks out yet. Get it while you can. The Repel season is right around the corner.

One of the morning newscasts had a monthly outlook for May this morning. It looks like we are in for a cooler and wetter than normal month. Thank La Nina for that one.

Something that is totally speculative on my part since I haven’t researched it much is a bad outlook for the hurricane season. While the ocean around the ENSO regions are way below normal in temperature, the water in the Gulf of Mexico is above normal. As the cool weather from the La Nina mixes with warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico we get severe weather outbreaks like we had last week. That could also play poorly if we have an active hurricane season.

Well since I am down to speculation, it is probably time to run along. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday Ma(rch)y 3rd, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

It is a pretty nice March day outside today. Temps stayed in the upper 30s most of the day and could peak out in the mid-40s. We have had off and on very light snow flurries, and occasional gusts of wind.

It is not what you would expect for May 3rd. What should you expect? The normal high/low for Rhinelander is 61 and 36. Yesterday we missed the high by 27 degrees and the low by 6. Today it looks like we will be normal minus 16 and 10.

The LaNina cold Spring game is getting old. I burned a generous pile of wood this winter, more than I normally have put up. After that ran out I burned the popple piles, and policed the wood yard for another load. I went and cut a load Easter Sunday, and now that is almost gone.  I can easily go cut more, but that isn’t the point. It isn’t normal to go through this much or be burning all day maple and oak fires daily in early May.

The rest of the week and weekend look a little better. We are looking for highs around 60 right through the weekend, and lows in the 35-42 range. There is a minor chance of rain about Thursday, and the weekend storm looks like it is going south of us. Both storms show a QPF of 0.01-0.1″, pretty much a non-event.

This should be a big weekend around here. The fishing season opens Saturday, and the ATV trails open up Friday. Hooray!

Speaking of ATVs, there is a committee meeting in the Town of Stephenson tomorow night (Wed May 4th @ 6:30 @ the town hall) about how they manage ATV trails with the new people elected to the town board. ATV supporters will want to go there, people against them should go to the Thursday night meeting. (hehe)

Also large on the Stephenson Town Board’s docket is the DNR proposal for Boat Landing #9, the one with the beach by Thornton’s. The forest plan has provisions in it for the DNR to make the beach wider and roped off with bouys, move the parking lot back up the hill, for vault toilets, and for a large picnic area and shelter over by the bay on the left as you go in.

What they need from the Town is for them to deed the road over to the DNR so that they can put up a fee collection box. If the town says NO the landing stays like it is now. The beach, landing, and porto-lets would all be maintained by WPS per the dam license agreement, and it would be free.

It is no secret that I think that the DNR played pretty loose with the laws planning the forest. They planned it inappropriately as a type of property more suitable for a nature preserve and put ‘native community’ forests at key spots to keep the ATV trail out. Now they want to do a big development on wetlands next to one of their native communities. One or the other is inappropriate, and it is the forest plan.

Fishermen and women this weekend should find lakes free of ice. When I saw Townsend Flowage and Waubee Lake driving by last Friday they were both open. Over the weekend I saw Caldron Falls Flowage by the dam, and it was open and had swells from the wind. There might be secluded lakes or bays that still hold ice, but I didn’t see any in my travels.

We have had  colder than normal spring, so water temperatures are likely below normal. That should be catching up as we get some warm sunny days.

The whitewater rafting last weekend by Kosir’s was out of hand. The river was running big and people had a great time. I brought home some amazing pictures, and I will have a gallery of them on the Riversport Facebook page later.

The Peshtigo River is falling from last weekend’s levels but will still be great for this weekend. I am expecting it to flatten out somewhere around +9-12″ and be close to that range for the weekend. Based on what I see in the near watershed there is still standing water in low spots and swamps, so I expect that the river will stay high for a while.

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

RJB