2012

Please join us over on the Big Snow Page

I am settled in at my winter home on the Big Snow Page. Visit us there for the usual news, weather, and events, plus snowmobile trail conditions.

http://bigsnowpage.com

Thursday December 6th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

We have a couple of chances for snow in the short term, and we will take a look at them tonight.

Friday night and into Saturday morning we have a chance of an inch or two of snow. The GFS model is showing a chance of an inch or two, the NAM model shows the snow missing us. The TV weather guy this evening was a little more impressed, looking for as much as 2-4.

I am not expecting much, if anything, for accumulating snow out of that one. That could change, but the info in front of me is not supportive of much snow right now.

The storm for Sunday is looking a little better tonight. The models have bounced around a little on details, but the bottom line is that one could end up being a 2-4 or 3-6 storm with a twist of maybe bigger.

The set up on the storm is a decent one, with a southern and northern storm coming together our region. The challenge is that neither storm is very strong.

The NAM is showing the most precip. If that one came home, we should see as much as 6-9″. The GFS is showing a little less, probably a 3-6 or a 4-8. The HPC is showing us in the 1-3 area and places as close as Eagle River in the 2-6 range.

I am pretty comfortable that we will see at least a 2-4 or 3-6 storm. The models have been trending a little stronger than that, so there is a chance at a little more. I am probably more skeptical than I should be on totals.

The good news behind the storm is that the temperatures will stay normal or a little cooler than normal. The snow should stick around for a while. The bad news is that there aren’t any other storms showing up on the GFS between now and the 15th when trails can open. That could change.

The Sunday storm looks like it will be good for the lake effect snow belt by the UP. Later in the storm there will probably be some pretty good cold north winds coming across Lake Superior. I am not going to guess at totals, but it looks like a good snow event for the favored areas.

The storm last night and today looked good on radar. Here on the ground it only amounted to a very light dusting.

There is no snow on the ground. I haven’t been past the lakes in the daytime in a few days, so I am not sure about ice conditions. Last week there were reports of 1-2″ in the bays of Caldron Falls, but I am not sure how that handled the warm spell and rain.

It took a lot of ice off of the Peshtigo River where I cross it by Kosir’s, but it is starting to bounce back. The mid to upper twenties the next few nights will help a little, but the 13 degree low for Monday night will be more what we are looking for to make ice.

The TV weather guys are big on naming storms. This one could be snowstorm Allen or whatever. I am kicking around the idea of doing that with snowmobile names.

A-Ariens, B- Boa-Ski C-Chaparral, D-Diablo Rouge, E-Evinrude, F- Foremost, G- Gilson, H- Harley Davidson, I-?, J- John Deere, K- Kawasaki, L-Laser, M-Moto-Ski N-? O-?, P-Phantom, Q- Not!, R- Rupp, S- Sno-Jet T- Trail Cat, U, V, W, X, Yamaha, ZRT

I find the concept a little corny, so I probably won’t move on it, but it was fun trying to come up with names.

So anyway… we are on snow watch for an inch or three for Friday night/Saturday morning, and a little bigger storm for Sunday. Hopefully they both come home.

That is it for now.. Have a good Friday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday November 16th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

I have been updating occasionally on the Big Snow Page, if I am not up to date here, check over there. After gun hunting all updates will be over there.

Speaking of gun hunting, it starts tomorrow morning. It is my opinion that it will be a very good year for hunters. I have been seeing more big bucks and deer in general than I have in many years.Bow hunters have been seeing a lot of deer, and some nice ones have been taken.

I have lost count, but I’d say that I have seen very nice bucks in five or six different spots in the last month or two. I had one really big one sideswipe the truck a few weeks ago, and he still lives. I saw one on top of a doe late last week on the way home from work. I saw one last Monday that was just huge with spectacular headgear to match. He is going to make some lucky hunter very happy.

The down economy has been brutal for a lot of businesses in the area, but I think that it has been good for the fish & game. A lot of people that used to come around aren’t anymore, or do a lot less. It is nothing like it was 10 or 20 years ago, and that favors the hunters that do go out.

We are looking at clear and slightly warmer than normal weather for opening weekend. The NWS has us for 26 overnight and a high of 45 Saturday. Saturday night the predict a low of 32, and Sunday a high of 49. There is no mention of precipitation in the 7 day outlook.

Here is Chris’ calendar of events.. Note that the  bake sales are today.

Rapids Resort has a FREE buffet Tuesday along with a lot of stuff that they raffle off. They have other food and Packers specials too.

The guys that cash their paychecks and get all singles will want to go to Thorntons, Curve Inn, or Beaver’s Bar off of T west of Townsend.

We had a warm stretch last week that took the first ice off of the lakes and flowages. It was only the first skin ice, but it had filled on a lot of slow water spots in shallow lakes. As of yesterday the ice was back. Again, it is just first ice, but it is a start. I am not sure that it will survive Sunday’s high of 50, but it will be back. This was Landing 11 on the upstream end of Caldron Falls Flowage 11/5. When I went by yesterday afternoon, it was just a little farther than that.

Don’t expect any ‘tracking snow’. We had enough snow to get the ground white last week, but it didn’t last very long between the sun and warm days.

Have a safe and fun deer hunting season and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Monday October 29th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It has been a few weeks since I have updated. As busy as I was with work I decided to take a little hiatus before I start with the regular reports over on the Big Snow Page. I am pretty sure that it has been my longest break from blogging one page or the other in the almost 14 years that I have been at it. I started Silvercliff.com in December of 98, but had blogs for a few years before that about building computers and my day trading stocks. It was good to step away for a while.

We have had some wild weather while I have been gone. Since the 9th of October we have seen almost 4″ of rain. The storm on the 13th & 14th brought a couple of inches according to the rain gauge from the USGS by the Peshtigo River. I think that it might have been more. A bucket outside at work had 3+ inches in it.

Over the weekend the area whitewater rivers were in nice shape from the rain. There were quite a few kayakers that ran the Pesh and I am sure the other rivers too. The Peshtigo got up to about 600CFS, some pretty sweet whitewater. I like the wet Fall season, it will help to fill the watersheds and bodes well for a strong Spring whitewater season.

Last week we had temperatures in the mid 60s, which was very nice. Mid-week we had some heavy fog as the warm moist air got heavy. It was not bad near Crivitz, but out here in Silver Cliff we were socked in. It was a little different that it wasn’t necessarily the worst in low spots and by the river or flowage. It was more a hit and miss thing. Driving by where X crosses the High Falls Flowage I could just see the first island downstream, and not much upstream.A couple of miles west it wasn’t bad, then it was really thick.

On the way home Wednesday night there were good and bad spots. As I got closer to home it got really heavy, and at one point it was as close to zero visibility that I have seen in fog. There were places that the headlights could punch through 50-100′, but close to home it was probably 30 or less. It was rough going.

Thursday we had a cold front come through and put an end to it. The rain came hot n heavy and we probably saw over an inch of rain in an hour. I laid down for an hour or two before work and woke up to huge puddles. One of the neighbors said on FB that there was some thunder and lightning along with it.

That cold front brought a 20+ degree temperature drop. Last week’s high of 65 turned into this weekend’s high of 42. The nights have been cold with temps initially in the mid-20s. Saturday night/Sunday morning brought a low of 19, and we are at 22 as of 3am Sunday morning. I’d be very surprised if we didn’t have some ice forming on the edges of lakes and rivers.

The 19 degree low also had me worried about freezing pipes in unheated places. That is getting pretty close to time to worry. Usually I don’t set up the heater in the well house until the end of November. Usually before that the above freezing daytime temperatures give it enough heat to not freeze overnight.So far it has been ok between the sunny days and over 40 high temps. The normal high/low temperature for today is 49/29.

The forecast has us seeing a little bit of a warm up and through next weekend the NWS is showing us pretty close to normal. They don’t have any rain in the forecast, but the GFS is showing a possibility of the big east coast storm grazing us a little on about Wednesday, and a couple of chances for rain 7+ days out.

While I was away the CPC came out with their winter forecast. For us they are looking for a warmer and drier winter than average. I understand why they came to that conclusion, but I am going to have to disagree. It was looking like we were going to be in for a mild El Nino winter, with a chance of it strengthening. We have had two La Nina winters in a row and it would be unusual to see a third. The standard indicators were suggesting a mild El Nino or neutral year, but there wasn’t really a strong signal or direction beyond that.

In the past few weeks the slight warming in the ENSO areas has backed off a little, and the indicators are not as strong in the warming direction. It is starting to look like a neutral year. I am planning on going into this in depth on the Big Snow Page in my next update. I am not going to spill too much now, but I will say that I am going to be quite far from agreeing with the CPC forecast.

While I was away Fisher’s Camp changed hands. The last owner didn’t make it and Deb & Jeff reopened it in mid-October. They are nice folks and they had good food, so hopefully things will go well for them.

The people of the Town of Stephenson are having a citizen’s meeting on November 3rd. The way that the town is set up, at a citizen’s meeting the public can set the agenda and issue binding directives for the town board. The citizens have already spoken loud and clear about the proposed zoning ordnance and that issue is done.This meeting is about the town water patrol on High Falls Flowage. The way that I understand it some people feel that it is redundant with the DNR patrols and should be eliminated. There was also discussion on the way that the town board would be elected.

The citizen’s meeting is not bound by an agenda beyond what the citizens themselves bring to the floor and vote on. A popular vote is binding once an item is brought up for vote. It is democracy in its purest form, warts and all.

That is my update for today. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB