July 2011

Friday July 29th, 2011

DOH!

I am not sure how I missed it in my event listing, but this weekend is Rustic Fest right down the street from Kosir’s. They are grilling and partying outside all weekend.

Saturday night and Sunday afternoon there is live music from the Darkhorse Band featuring master fiddler Tommy Greywolf. Tommy G played with Brooks & Dunn and many other greats and is a show in himself. The Darkhorse guys are great too, having played country music for many years.

The weather looks good for the weekend with temps in the mid to upper 80s. Saturday night and Sunday there is a slight chance that a scattered shower or storm could brew up, about30%. It isn’t anything organized.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday July 28th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

I apologize for not having an early week report. I have been working away from home this week.

It has been a nice week. The sun has been out and temperatures and humidity were pretty reasonable Monday and Tuesday. It was a welcome relief from last week’s heat.

Monday I took the electric bill outside to do a meter reading to see how bad the bill for the AC during the heat wave was going to be. It ended up being about $120 for those 10 days, more than my whole July electric bill last year. It will smart a little when the bill comes, but $12 a day to stay comfortable doesn’t seem that bad.

Yesterday we saw a little rain. The area rain gauges show as little as 0.08″ and as much as 0.25″. The majority of the storm stayed south, giving southern WI and neighboring states a lot of rain. One line of storms lined up on Dubuque, IA and gave them a reported 10.3″ of rain at the airport as wave after wave of the storm came down the same path like train cars on a track. While we would be delighted if that happened in the Peshtigo River watershed, it is a disaster anywhere else, and our thoughts are with our friends in that area today.

We have a nice weekend ahead.  Friday and Saturday look like nice days in the mid-80s. Overnight lows in the low to mid-60s will make evening campfires and star gazing comfotable too.

Sunday the NWS adds in a 30% chance of rain. The NAM and GFS models don’t think much of it, giving us a QPF of 0.01-0.1″ per 6 hours.

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

The Crivitz Rescue Squad is having a Ride For Rescue this Saturday. It is a fundraiser for the Crivitz Rescue Squad that leaves Riverside in at 11:30am. Here is a link (PDF!).

The Crooked Lake Lion’s Club is having a Brat Fry Saturday at the Lakewood Super Value store from 10-2.

The Brazeau Fire, Rescue and Dive Team’s Annual Fundraiser Picnic is this Saturday too. Brazeau is a little south of White Potato Lake.

It was pretty pleasant working outside this week. Not only was the weather nice, the bugs were pretty much absent. I was working on a place in the woods by a lake, and I did not see a mosquito at all. I think one of the guys had a deer fly, but that was it. No complaints here!

I did have a few critter sightings this week, but two are a little in doubt. One was a little critter crossing the road about a mile west of McCaslin Mountain Campground about sunset Tuesday. I am guessing that it was a weasel, fisher or a marten, but without a better look it is speculative.

Yesterday I was heading west on Eagle River Rd near Northway Dr (Old A) when a critter ambled across the road about 1/8th of a mile ahead of me. By my assessment it was a cougar, but I can’t be sure. The size,  body shape, and walk were right, but without seeing that long tail I can’t say it was for sure a big cat.

Beyond those there were a few deer and porcupines, and an osprey on the river last weekend.

We will be having fun on the rivers again this weekend. The Peshtigo is on the low side at -2, but still runnable. The Menominee is varying between 1,000-1,800cfs, good to go either way. If fast water isn’t your thing, check out the sit on top kayaks where you can tour the upstream end of Caldron Falls Flowage, or the tubing.

Well there is much to do today, so I am off to go and jump into another full day in the beautiful north woods.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday July 22nd, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

We have a wild weekend coming up this weekend with the Hog Wrestling Competition at Caldron Falls Bar on Saturday. That is one of the biggest events of the year for the area with thousands of people that regularly attend.

We also have an interesting weekend forecast, and FINALLY some moderating temperatures and humidity. As happens sometimes, my model guidance shows a variety of opinions on how the weekend weather will unfold.

Right now it looks like we will see a cold front come through the state sometime in the early morning hours Saturday, and possibly as late as noon. Timing is everything on this one. At 6am it is a lot harder to get thunderstorms rolling than at noon after the sun has been up for 7 hours. At that point we get some varience in the amount of rain expected too, from almost nothing up to 0.75-1.0″ of rain.

Once that cold front passes we should be good for rain for most of the weekend. There is another storm headed this way for later Sunday with a warm front and closely following cold front.

Right now my focus is on the cold front line of storms. Beyond that the majority of the rain and storm activity will be to the south and west of us as has been happening the past few weeks. One area of WI near the IA/ MN/ WI border could see as much as 3″ of rain over the weekend.

For us the extremes are with the NAM model that has us in the 0.1-0.25″ band contrasting with the HPC that shows us in the 0.75-1.0″ band. In the middle is the GFS at 0.25-0.5″. Those are 60 hour totals for the whole weekend.

I kind of like the TV weather channel 2-2’s version of it. They are showing us mostly clear of the rain except for one good line of storms late Saturday morning. That line of storms is shown mostly orange and red, but their animation appears wise to the Silver Cliff Split, and has the storm weaker here as it passes. The timing isn’t ideal, but it seems like the most believable scenario.

So.. Bottom line.. I am looking for a mostly cloudy weekend with highs between 75-85 and the best chance of rain in the first 12 hours of Saturday and later Sunday.

The more normal temperatures and lower humidity will feel like air conditioning after this past week. The heat and humidity were nasty, and I won’t have any trouble seeing that go.

As far as the main event this weekend, hog wrestling at the Caldron Falls Bar, I kind of expect a big turnout this year. Between the economy and the gas prices tourism has really taken a hit. That all turned around on the 4th of July weekend when we had the busiest weekend in a couple of years.

My observation from that is that a lot of regulars that came up 4-6 weekends over the summer have cut back to a few of the big ones. That would include this weekend for many.

The Hog Wrestling event itself is pretty huge. There are thousands of people, music, food and drink, and folks chasing pigs around an arena a foot deep in mud and water. I can still hear my Mother yelling at me to stop playing with my food, I wonder if this qualifies..

This weekend also comes with the standard warning about the law enforcement presence in the area. Usually the Sheriff’s Dept and State Patrol are out in force this weekend keeping the order. Be smart about it and use designated drivers or shuttle buses. Keep it fun and safe.

As is the tradition, I will be about 10 miles NW of there at Kosir’s taking pictures and editing videos for the whitewater rafting. I am expecting a good weekend on the river. Not only will there be a lot of people around, the river came up a little from Tuesday’s storm. It is at about zero right now, and 280CFS. Normal is about 240, so we are a little above that. It isn’t high, but it is runnable and fun.

I saw a poster at the grocery store in Lakewood this week that the Doty VFD Picnic is this Saturday.  Here is a link.

That is news from here. Have a fun and safe weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday July 19th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

The weekend came about as expected. It was warm Saturday and hot Sunday.

The rain never got here Saturday, but we had a good storm Sunday night just after dark. That one brought a dramatic lightning display and some strong winds. I guessed the rain totals here at 3/8-1/2″ and went home to find the rain gauges showing 0.39″. Lucky guess.

We had another line of storms come through yesterday that brought some heavy rains. I didn’t get so much here, but the Peshtigo River watershed (outlined) and to our SW had areas that saw 1-2″ of rain.

It is good to see the area get at least some rain, it has been a few weeks since we have had meaningful rain.

The heat is the topic of discussion these days. It has been hot and humid here like everywhere else. I saw on the TV weather last night that an area near Green Bay reported a dew point over 80 degrees yesterday. That is pretty humid air. That has only happened 3 times in the last 50 years in this area.

Usually the rule is a dew point over 60 is where humidity starts getting uncomfortable. In the 70-75 range it is very humid and quite uncomfortable. Over 80 is oppressive.

I could tell that there was a lot of humidity last weekend because the rocks in shaded areas of the trail were sweating. The warm humid air came in contact with the cool rocks and the humidity condensed, leaving them wet. Assuming a ground/rock temperature of about 60 degrees, that would put the dew point higher than that.

At the moment (11:30am) we are looking at 89F and a dew point of 72, a fairly hot and very humid day. Tomorrow looks like the peak of it all when temps could go to 97 and dew points could be in the mid-70s.

Once we get through tomorrow the heat and humidity should gradually ramp down a little. Look for mid 80s for Thursday-Sunday, and dew points in the 60-65 range.

With a hot juicy atmosphere there is a chance of rain daily. Usually it will be a 30 or 40% chance, and when the rain comes it might be a good T-storm or downpour, but it won’t last too long. The squall Sunday night maybe lasted an hour, storms since have been less.

The weekend weather looks interesting. The models right now have a warm front camped to our south for Saturday. That could bring a little rain downstate, but they leave us dry. Early Sunday morning they are showing a cold front coming through with an area of storms. This could bring an inch of rain, but it will also bring in much cooler air behind it. Monday we are looking for a high of 79 with a lot less humidity.

Last weekend I stayed wet to beat the heat. I think I went swimming at least 6 times. Sunday afternoon a few of us went tubing down the calm stretch of the Peshtigo by Kosir’s, and that was a lot of fun. The water was even warmer than usual after the hot day, leaving it very refreshing.

The storms this week have already brought the river up an inch or so, and more will follow. Depending on how many storms hit the watershed, the weekend water levels could range from good enough to great. Yesterday’s rain should keep it above zero and in positive territory for the weekend, how much higher is the question now.

This is a big weekend around here with Saturday being the Caldron Falls Bar’s 26th annual Hog Wrestling competition. The event is one of the biggest in the area, bringing in an estimated 5-8,000 people. The idea is that people go into a muddy ring of calf deep water and try to put a pig on a barrel.

I will encourage you to bring your designated driver. This weekend always brings a lot of people and also a significant law enforcement presence. Don’t be driving drunk or screwing around or there is a pretty good chance of getting some unwanted attention. Have a great time, just be smart about it.

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

RJB