June 2012

Thursday June 28th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It has been a warm week. We hit 91 yesterday and are at 88 so far today. It would probably be warmer, but we clouded up in advance of a small area of showers moving in over the next hour or two. That will end up being the only rain of the week so far, if it actually hits the ground. So far in its path from western WI is has only been radar rain.

With the 4th of July landing on Wednesday this week we kind of have an unclear holiday weekend scenario. Will people come the weekend before, the weekend after, or all week? Yup. The events and fireworks are going that way too.

Let’s start with the event calendar..

As far as weather, it looks like a warm stretch. The best chance for rain are a really minor chance Friday night, a better chance Sunday afternoon, and then again on about the 4th.  Other than the warmer days today and Friday, temps look to be in the mid-80s into the middle of next week, with low temps mostly in the low 60s. It could be a lot worse weather outlook.

July 1st brings a new law from the DNR that ATVs will need license plates. They don’t issue one, you have to make or buy one the right size and put your sticker number on it. They are looking to make tracking down bad actors easier, before you could only describe the machine and rider’s apparel. Now they have a plate number. Hat tip to Mark for the link.

In last week’s paper there was an article about the Town of Stephenson allowing ATVs on town roads. They are opening up the roads on a trial basis this year as soon as they get them marked. There was some stuff that I didn’t like about it though.. The article said that they were looking to make Parkway and Caldron Falls Rd 35mph end to end in the Town of Stephenson, and drop Newton Lake Rd to 45mph. There are parts of those roads that should be 35, but some is pretty rural and should be at least 45.

Fire danger is currently low in Marinette, Florence, Forest, and Oconto Counties. It is high as close as Menominee and Shawano Counties. Without much rain it will probably increase, but at the moment we have high humidity and limited winds helping slow the spread of wildfires.

That is news for now. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday June 21, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

We saw a couple of inches of rain this week, so it is a good weekend to take to the river and do some whitewater rafting or some flat water tubing at Kosir’s.

The bulk of the rain came early week when we had about 2″ fall. We didn’t see much yesterday when the big cold front came through, maybe about 1/2″. We were expecting more rain than that and possibly severe storms, but the line of storms came through about sunset and they were losing the power of the afternoon heating. If they were going to be severe, that is just as well anyway.

The rain this week took the Peshtigo from a no fun -6″ to a yee-ha level of +4″, and it should be in the fun zone for the weekend. For the best time I like to see over 250-300cfs of flow and we are at 417 this morning.

The Menominee River also came up, and that river has been running at about 1,400cfs, again in the fun zone.

The rain was not all fun and good times though. In the case of my driveway the big hill washed out pretty bad and there are about 10″ deep ruts. That’s bad for the neighbors & I, but good for the gravel guy. I also saw a couple of trees down, but they were very widely scattered.

Over on the western end of the UP in Duluth, MN they had a lot more rain. The NWS official count is 6.5″ in one day, but it was closer to 8-10″. If you have ever been to Duluth, you know that they have terrain that resembles a ski resort, and all of that water running down the huge hills caused a lot of problems. There were big washouts on roads and a lot of flooding in low areas. The zoo was in one of those areas, and they lost some animals to drowning and had to round up a few escapees.  I guess that makes the grass growing faster around here a pretty minor complaint.

We are expecting a little rain over the weekend, but it isn’t as bad as the NWS forecast makes it look. They have a 40-50% chance daily from Fri-Sun with the exception of Friday night.

My research shows that the HPC has us in the 0.25-0.5″ band for the weekend, with Saturday night being the focus of it. The GFS is showing a storm with about that amount for Saturday night. The North American Model shows the bulk of it to our north and south, and our 1/10th of an inch or so coming early Sunday morning.

Either way it is hardly a washout, and we should have a mostly good weekend. Look for mid to upper 70s Friday and mid-70s for the balance of the weekend, with comfortable nights in the 50s.

Yesterday was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Sunset last night was at 8:45pm. Now the days start getting shorter until about the third week in December.

There is some discussion if this is the start of summer or not. Meteorological summer starts on June 1st, but yesterday was the beginning of the summer based on the solstice. Either way summer is too short.

Critter sightings this week were pretty normal with some deer along the roads, including one fawn. There were a few small turtles up on the gravel roads on their egg laying quest. The moths around the outside spotlight have been an impressive collection of species, including some of the bigger ones, and the bats have been running sorties to feast on the bounty. The gators (mosquitoes) are still really minimal, ticks are still present.

In local news.. last week the Town of Stephenson made a significant move toward opening up all of the town roads for ATVs. There will be a few exceptions where safety concerns take over, and they will be working on that on an ongoing basis. Now the clubs need to get the roads signed up to standards before they can be officially opened. With deer hunting down, summer tourism down, and snowmobiling down, this is a big deal for the town.

Today still finds me a little sore from Tuesday’s fun when I went out on the jet ski from Fun in the Sun jet ski rentals. We went out Tuesday afternoon, and I rode it like I stole it all afternoon. It was only my second time since the stand up ones of the 80s, but I was getting a handle on it. I am still working on the timing of wake jumping, but I did manage epic big air a few times. On a 1-10 fun scale I’d put it at about a 17.9… It was huge fun, and if I wasn’t poor I’d have two of ’em.

That is about a wrap for this visit. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday June 19th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

The word of the day is rain. We were expecting a little over the weekend, and that worked out well. There was some rain late Saturday afternoon and into the night, but not too much, and it left the rest of the weekend pretty nice.

SINCE THEN.. we have had about 2″ of rain in the last 24 hours. The local rain gauges from Athelstane Weather (1.89″) and the USGS gauge by Kosir’s (2″) are on board with thae 2″ guess. The NWS radar returns are showing soem local areas with as much as 4″..

There was a strong line of storms that came through this morning that tagged Lakewood, the High Falls Flowage area, and Crivitz, and making the red streak marking the 4″ range.

Even though we have had some heavy rain and pretty good house shaking lightning strikes, the storms did not bring much in the way of severe weather. There were reports of ping pong ball sized hail near Peshtigo, and hail and high winds an hour or more south of here, but so far we have dodged the heavy weather. It wouldn’t surprise me if this morning’s storm brought more wind and hail, there were severe thunderstorm warnings, but I don’t have reports on that yet, it is only an hour old.

The same hot moist air responsible for the storms is expected to bring us juicy humid days around 90 degrees with a chance of more storms today and tomorrow. Wednesday night a cold front is expected to bring one last storm and take our temps back into the 80s with lower humidity.

There is a storm showing up in the forecast for Saturday, but the models have it hitting mostly in the center of the state, and us in the 0.25-0.5″ band. Other than that one chance, it looks like a good weekend with temps in the mid-70s.

We were having a bit of a drought summer with the rivers running at or near historical lows for June, and some pretty dry ground. That is no more. Now there are puddles, soggy ground, and the rivers have risen quickly. The Peshtigo is up about 8″ in the last day, and is still rising. The faster rising river to the west with the adjoining watershed is up about a foot.

As far as whitewater rafting on the Peshtigo River, it went from really low, about -5, to well into the fun zone at about +3, and it is rising quickly. If you have a chance to go rafting this week or weekend, go for it. A rising river is a fun river, and this rain definitely put the Pesh into the fun zone.

Last week I mentioned that the turtles were up laying their eggs in the sand and gravel along lakes and streams. That has thinned out pretty much, I only saw one so far this week. Here is a picture of one from last week.

Here is Chris’ event calendar for this week and weekend.

It was a slow week for me with wildlife sightings, with only one bear and a fox beyond the usual critters and birds. I continue to marvel at the lack of mosquitoes this year. There are some, but not like in a normal summer. I found myself walking down a wooded path this week that is usually like a Deep Woods Off commercial, and I couldn’t believe that I emerged without a bite. No complaints here, but it is unusual.

That is about it for me this morning. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

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Thursday June 14th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

My apologies for not posting a Tuesday update this week. There just weren’t enough hours in the day this week. It is great to be busy with work, and there sure is a lot of it.

Anyway. One item that was missing from last week’s updates were the turtles. Last week and into this week the snapping turtles were coming up out of the lakes and swamps to lay their eggs. They like sandy or gravelly soil, so a lot of turtles could be seen along gravel roads and driveways.

Last night when I was out driving the deer were pretty common along the roads. I also saw my first spotted fawn of the season, a really tiny little guy that was just getting his legs. It is fawn season, so keep your eyes open for them.

Quite a few people have been seeing black bears. Some people that are new to the area seemed surprised by that. We do have a very healthy black bear population.

It has been very dry this Spring & Summer. The Peshtigo River is setting record low flows (14 years of stats), The Menominee is too (19 years of stats), and the Wolf is very close (45 years of stats).  It looks like we are just about done with that for a while.

We have a large scale weather pattern setting up that suggests that we will be seeing some rain over the next week or so. There is a large area of high pressure over the east coast that is blocking the eastward progression of storms and disturbances. As the storms move in off of the west coast they run into this blocking high pressure and head north into our neighborhood. Most storms don’t get past eastern lower Michigan or the western edge of Ohio.

There are identifiable storms like the one showing up on the models for Saturday night, but for the most part the timing and placement of the little disturbances will make weather forecasting very challenging in the short term. Conditions will be favorable for some rain, but I am not expecting all day rains or a washout weekend. It is more a hit and miss thing. I think that the NWS is on the right path with a 40-50% chance of rain daily through the 7 day forecast with the exception of Friday and Sunday nights.

One of the reasons that I think that we will get some drought relief is that the HPC QPF is showing us getting close to 2″ of rain between now and Tuesday. For areas west of about Rhinelander, the numbers jump to about 4″ of rainfall. No that is not a typo.

I do expect it to rain this weekend, be ready for that. I am not expecting all day rains though.

Friday and Saturday are progged to be in the mid-80s, and Sunday around 80 in the wake of Saturday night’s cold front.

The event calendar suggests that it is not a good weekend for a wet forecast. There are a couple of big motorcycle rides in the area. One is the 1st Annual Bug Splatter Ride to benefit Twin Bridge Rescue Squad with the Lakeside Bar & Grill on Newton Lake. They give you a target to put anywhere that you want on your bike, and the bug splatters closest to the bull’s eye win prizes.

The other big ride in the area is the Jeff ‘Digger’ Diges Memorial Ride with Gateway Bar in Crivitz. They raise money for a scholarship fund, and this has been a huge ride in the past.

There is another big ride coming up in early July with the Super Dave ride, July 5th through the 7th with Curve Inn. That one will end back at the Curve with live music.

This weekend Chris also has one even on her  event calendar

That’s news from here.  Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB