August 2011

Friday August 19th, 2011

Tornado Near Wausaukee, One dead, Power out for thousands

11:57pm

Greetings and welcome!

There were reports of some heavy weather in Marinette County tonight. The news said that the storm brought hail as big as 2″, and a tornado that took at least one man’s life.

Details have been very elusive. Where was it? How old was the guy? We don’t know yet.

The best that I can tell you is that it was north and east of Silver Cliff. We didn’t see much for rain and no severe weather.

My best guess based on a screen cap of the NWS radar returns for rainfall is that the most rain fell between Hwy C and 8. The heavier stuff was likely along Hwy C and Perch Lake Rd between Athelstane and Wausaukee. Wausaukee, east to the river, and into Michigan looks like the strongest rainfall, and that is my guess of where the severe stuff was. The news said that 1,500 people around Wausaukee lost power.

Here is the NWS rainfall estimate screen cap, followed by a Google Maps screen cap of the same area to help place highways and such.

Information on this has been elusive, so this is just my best guess. Hopefully the morning will bring some clarity.

Here is an article from the Green Bay Fox 11 TV station.

No this was not in the forecast.

RJB

Thursday August 18th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

The rain that came yesterday wasn’t much. Totals for most of the state were measured in hundredths of an inch, if they saw any rain.

The forecast for the weekend is the biggest item in today’s update. Things are looking up in that department a lot.

The old forecast had a chance of rain Friday night into Saturday. Now it looks like the rain will come through Friday afternoon, leaving us a great weekend for weather.  Look for partly cloudy skies and temps in the mid-70 for the daytime, and temps in the 50s overnight. You can’t ask for much more out of an August weekend.

That is about news from here. Time for me to run off for work.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday August 16th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

It is another pleasant August day today. With temps in the low 80s and with moderate humidity the overcast is helping to keep it comfortable.

We have been in a pretty comfortable weather pattern for a while now, and it should last into next week and beyond. I recognize the pattern from winter where we see weak storms every 3-4 days and generally pleasant weather. In winter I dread the pattern because it only brings small snows.

It isn’t going to snow this week here, but we have a chance of rain tonight and tomorrow and again about Friday night or Saturday morning.  As mentioned above they are weak, cut off storms. Tonight/tomorrow looks like the big one with a possible 0.25-0.5″ of rain, but the radar doesn’t look very impressive right now, so that might be generous.  Saturday’s rain is a meager 0.1-0.25″ possible rainfall, not much to worry about.

In the meantime I don’t see a high temperature over 81 in the NWS 7 day outlook. I can’t say that I am mad about that.

Chris and I were talking the other day wondering if the back of the summer hot weather has been broken and we are starting into a more pleasant September pattern with nice days and cool nights. It seems that way, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

So the weather looks good with a few minor exceptions.

The progress on the construction on Parkway North (Hwy I) has been coming right along. They have asphalt from about 1/2 mile north of Wolfe Ln down to C, and over the  weekend some was done with a second layer. They were back at it yesterday.

I didn’t cover much of the picnic and parade in my Sunday update, mostly because I missed both. As happens every year, my work at Kosir’s kept me away. I actually took the long way back to dodge getting caught in the parade on the way back from a trip. I would have preferred to catch it, but I had a schedule to meet. The ride through the beech forest and back down Harper were nice.

Chris said that the politicians running in today’s recall elections were both in the parade. My response was that explains the horse (droppings) along the road..

Chris went with me on a computer call the other night and we took the long way. On the way we saw a rabbit, a coyote, a deer, and a momma deer and fawn. Not bad for 8 miles.

We have a lot of events coming up. Here is Chris’ list, and I will follow up with some new ones out of the papers.

It looks like Chris was pretty thorough, the only thing that I found was up in Laona the VFW is having a corn boil with free corn, refreshments, kids games, drawings & raffles and more. That and Galaxy & Fritz are playing at the Beach Club Saturday night. That is of interest because they will be playing the Rapids Resort next Saturday night.

Next weekend and Labor Day weekend there are a lot of events.

I am hoping that we see a lot of rain tonight and tomorrow to keep the whitewater fun on the Peshtigo River going. Right now it is pretty rocky but runnable if you are dedicated. Usually I look for levels over 300cfs and a minimum of about 200, and we are at 204. An inch or three of rain would turn that around with perfect timing for the weekend. There is the Menominee, which is still running over 1,000cfs daily.

Well, the clock is getting away from me again so I have to run. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Sunday August 14th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

It has been a beautiful weekend for weather. There was a little rain Friday night, but it was brief enough that the road under overhanging trees stayed dry. Saturday’s Rain ended about the same way. We had a brief shower move through that was just enough to get everything wet.

Not all of Northern WI fared that well. From about Rhinelander northwest there were scattered showers and storms for much of the day. A lot of those areas saw repeated waves of rain, and probably didn’t have a nice Saturday at all.

It just goes to show why I say don’t let a forecast cancel your weekend. Be ready for anything, but don’t give up based on a forecast. This weekend our 60 and 70% chance of rain ended up less that 2/10ths of an inch and maybe 20-40 minutes of total rain. One was after sunset, the other came about 5pm Saturday.

The disturbed weather brought some cool clouds around sunset Saturday evening. At first the sun back lighting big distant storm clouds was really a nice view. Later on I convinced Chris that we should go catch a sunset on Caldron Falls. That brought a crop of pictures like this one.

It was a challenging sunset to photograph because the sky above the clouds and setting sun stayed so bright. It didn’t make sense until the big full moon rise behind us and kept the sky lit well past sunset. Now I understand..

Now the weekend is winding down and after one more raft trip it is time to relax. Hopefully the sunset is this nice again later tonight.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB