2012

Friday May 25th, 2012

Greetings and happy Friday!

The holiday weekend is here and so there is a lot to cover. First of all people traveling to the area from the south will want to know that the big bridge on I-43 in Green Bay went down to one lane last week for construction. Common sense would hope that they would open it for the holiday weekend, but if they don’t it will be a bottleneck deluxe on Friday night. There is also construction on 141 between Amberg and Beecher as they improve the road and put in passing lanes.

The weather outlook for the weekend is the next hot item. There are a mixture of ideas on how the weekend weather will go down. The long and short of it is that there will be a warm front lifting north through the state early in the weekend that will bring some rain and storms. Right now it looks like the rain will time out for late Saturday and Saturday night. Going with that scenario, Sunday would be mostly rain free and in the mid-80s, followed by another chance at rain Monday.

There is another scenario being offered that holds the rain off for the most part until Sunday, and giving us a wet day. So far the Saturday night timing is the most popular.

The NWS has us for a 60% chance Saturday, 70% Saturday night, and then 50% for the balance of Sunday and Monday.

The HPC QPF is showing the most precip Saturday afternoon and night, with 1/10th of an inch for Sunday.

Here is a web feed of the Green Bay TV-2 weather forecast from the noon news today. They also are on board with the Saturday night scenario.

So.. I do expect rain over the weekend, but a wave or two of storms, not an all weekend rain. Saturday looks cool in the mid to upper 60s, and Sunday and Monday much warmer with temps in the 80s.

We had some weather to talk about yesterday. The day was windy and gusty, and it knocked power out for a lot of the area. At one point WPS had about 19,000 customers out, but as usual, they got it fixed pretty quickly. The noon news showed peak wind gusts in the 40-48mph range. I did not see many downed branches or trees, or any widespread damage.

After dark a line of showers and thunderstorms came through with about 1/2″ of rain, maybe a little less in some areas. It was a decent downpour, but it didn’t last as long as we would have liked it to. I was not aware of a lot of wind with the storms, but apparently they had a tornado and straight line wind damage in areas near Wausau.

Also somewhat weather related, there are a couple of big wildfires up in the UP of Michigan, one at about 17,000 acres, one at about 3,200. The wind was whipping those up yesterday.

Here is the updated event calendar..

In addition to Chris’ calendar, I saw that the Town of Stephenson is having a rummage and bake sale at the town/fire hall Saturday from 8-1. I our last visit I wasn’t sure if it was a rummage or bake sale, it is both.

The McCaslin Lioness Faire is in Lakewood Sunday.

There is live music Friday night at Firelane with Paul Hanna from annex. Sunday is their closing party. The bar was sold, and Sunday is the going away and bottle emptying party.

Saturday night the Garbage Men will be playing the Rapids Resort by Kosir’s.

Saturday night there is live music at Curve Inn with Reset to Zero.

That is pretty much it from here. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Wednesday May 23rd, 2012

Update- I can’t believe that I missed this in my update, but I did. The Firelane Bar is having live music Friday night with Paul Hanna from Annex. The bar has been sold, and their last day is Sunday the 27th, and that will be the big going away and empty the bottle party starting at 2pm. Best wishes to Terry & Jabber, Snail & Michelle, Shelly, and the other Firelane crew.

Greetings and welcome!

Last weekend was pretty nice for weather. It was warm out with temps around 90 and a wind that made it a lot more comfortable. It was warm enough that I got my first dip in the river while I was there doing pictures, and it felt pretty good.

Sunday afternoon tthere were some big mean looking thunderstorms headed our way. The sky was dark and rumbling, and the TV had severe thunderstorm warnings for us and surrounding counties. As happens sometimes, it hit our area and evaporated. It didn’t rain at all by W & Parkway, there was a little at Parkway and X, and here in Silver Cliff, it didn’t get wet at all. For those of us that want rain it was discouraging, but it made for a better Sunday afternoon for outside play.

That storm came with a cold front, and I think that we had a night in the 40 degree range right after that. I have been seeing temps of about 60 in the house each morning, but held out on starting the wood burner until today. Yesterday was pretty comfortable outside, and I got a little yard work done. I might follow up with some more today since it is cool out again (75 & overcast).

There is some news brewing this morning. The first item is that the paper mill in Niagara is on fire. I am waiting for updated news at noon. The other item is that the Marinette County Sheriff’s Department is looking for a big guy with a red star tat on his right wrist. Apparently he robbed the bank in Pembine yesterday and managed an escape. The last guy didn’t get far.

Being the fourth week in May the forests are pretty well filled in and the animal and insect world is alive and well. The forests that I could see into a month ago are now a wall of green. There are still a lot of plants and trees coming in, but it is pretty well along. There are some trillium around still, but they are becoming less common.

The insect world, on the other hand, is flourishing. Last weekend found a few friendly flies, some river bugs like mayflies, and our old friend the wood tick. Moths and butterflies are becoming very common and wide of variety. I am happy to report that I still haven’t encountered any mosquitoes, other than the few pioneers in the warm stretch in March. The wood ticks are pretty common though, prepare yourself for them with a little Repel around your legs and pants cuffs and you are good to go.

There are more critters around this week. The squirrels and chipmunks are very active. The deer are present in the roads at night. Driving some forest roads the other evening at sunset I found a lot of whippoorwills near the road as evidenced by their very insistent calls.

This coming weekend is Memorial Day Weekend. There will hopefully be a lot of people visiting the area. There are some events lined up. One is the VFW memorial service and picnic at the Silver Cliff Memorial Picnic Grounds. There is the McCaslin Lioness Faire in Lakewood, note that both events are on a Sunday. I recall hearing about the Town of Stephenson VFD having an event this weekend, but I don’t have a date on it yet, and I am not sure if it is a rummage or bake sale. I will catch up with that and other events when I get a paper tomorrow or Friday.

Speaking of rummage sales, the signs are already up at a lot of houses between here and Crivitz. Rummage sale fans should have a good weekend.

Weekend weather… can you get back to me in a few days?

Thursday and Thursday night there is a chance of rain and storms coming our way, but——– the latest models have it big and mean until it gets to our area, and then it evaporates like the last one did. Previous models have shown it giving us some decent rains, so in my opinion, that one could still go either way. My bias is toward it evaporating. We could use the rain. That and we have seen it so often that we have a name for the phenomenon, the Silver Cliff Split.

Behind that Friday looks nice, with a mix of sun and clouds, and a high of about 75.

The weekend weather will be dominated by a storm coming in Friday and Friday night, and staying in the region until Monday. The NWS has rain chances at 30% Friday night, 50% Saturday and Saturday night, a 30% chance Sunday night, and 40% chance for Sunday, Monday, and Monday night.

Friday is predicted to be about 75, Saturday looks like it will be about 70, and Sunday about 80, and Monday could see mid-80s.

The rain chance daily sounds a lot worse than it actually is. Right now it looks like the people that skip the weekend over weather will miss out on a good one. I looked at the forecast models and the HPC QPF to see what we are really in for. Most of the time frames with rain for our area have us in the lightest bands, and those frequently don’t bring us rain. The QPF on the weekend suggests that we will see a total of 0.25-0.5″ over the weekend. That is one good downpour, or maybe two medium ones, and the heaviest rain is centered on Saturday night.

Here is the HPC prediction. With daylight savings time we are GMT -5 hours, so this is valid from 7pm Friday night through 7pm Sunday night. We are in the third level of green,  1/4-1/2″ for the weekend.

Here is the latest model animation from the NCEP GFS forecast model. The first storm is our Thursday storm, the second one is the weekend storm. As you can see, the weekend storm mostly goes around us. It might change, but right now it looks like a mostly rain-free weekend in spite of a chance of it daily.

Well there are a million and one things on the to-do list, so I am off to dive in. My plan is to return Friday with a weather update and events once I get the local paper.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday May 18th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It is a nice warm mostly sunny day outside today with a bit of wind blowing. That looks like the template for tomorrow too. We are expecting mid-80s for Saturday and a 15-20mph wind that could gust to 25. The forecast models show a really slight chance of some rain in the afternoon, but that is mostly for areas to our south.

Sunday looks a little more dicey. The forecast at the moment is for a minor chance of rain in the morning, with chances getting up to 70% in the afternoon. They are expecting showers and thunderstorms, and a chance that they could be strong.The latest trend has been to push the timing of it back a little, so we could end up with a decent Sunday too.

It will be a nice weekend for time around the campfire or camping. Low temperatures are expected to be in the mid to upper 50s tonight and around 60 Saturday night. Sky cover is forecast to be mostly clear tonight and partly cloudy Saturday night. I am a little skeptical about Saturday night’s partly cloudy, but that depends on how fast the system for Sunday starts moving cloud cover in. There is a chance that we could see some northern lights both nights, but it isn’t much of a CME.

The fire danger will be high this weekend. At the moment we have warm temps, strong winds and low humidity. Between that and the lack of rain this week, use caution with your fire.

The great outdoors is embracing Spring with great enthusiasm now. The world of green is really filling in and growing quickly. Every day I see more growth, a new flower, bug or critter, and just an explosion of growth in general. That also means that we are getting into the Repel season. So far the biggest pest in my travels have been wood ticks, but I am sure that the gators (mosquitoes) will be out soon too.

People that travel to the area from the south will want to know about the construction project on the big bridge on I43 in Green Bay. That starts Monday and they will have it down to one lane and some nearby ramps closed through the summer. Here is a link to the news feature on it. There is other construction pending too, again here is a link to news on that.

Well it is time for me to go and jump into the day. I have a computer call, and then I am headed for some time with the lawn mower. I got about half of the yard cut last week, and now it all needs cutting again.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

/RJB

Tuesday May 15th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It was quite a weekend last weekend. The weather came out better than predicted, and there were a lot of people around to enjoy it.

The river didn’t get as high as I had expected, but again a lot of people came and had a lot of fun. There were plenty of spills and wipeouts, and everyone had a blast.

Saturday night brought the birthday club party and a live band to Curve Inn. The No Schtick Band was impressive, and hopefully they play around here again soon.

Chris commented Friday on how different the place looked since last weekend with everything greening up so fast. The green explosion is under way. It is getting hard to see very far into the woods now, and the trees are really starting to fill in. The trillium are getting common now, and a lot of places look like someone littered the forest floor there are so many. There are a lot of other new flowers coming in too, and the ferns are starting to unwrap from their fiddleheads.

The prediction of last weekend being my first weekend with Repel fell a little short. I maybe encountered a half dozen ticks in my travels, and NO mosquitoes. No complaints here. I did see a lot of different moths and butterflies, and the windshield on the truck is loading up with them. I heard one person mention some pesky back flies, but I haven’t seen them.

Speaking of moths, the one pictured last week from my front screen was there Thursday night and stayed until Saturday night. She managed to attract no less than three suitors Saturday night, and apparently left by Sunday morning. She was ID’d as a popple spinx moth.

We had a cold front go through today, but it didn’t bring much for rain. There were a few showers on radar this morning, and so far it looks like the afternoon waves will be to our south. It is expected to take our temps down into the upper 30s tonight, and drop today’s current temp of 84 to tomorrow and Thursday’s highs of around 70.

There is a late week storm to keep an eye on. It is currently progged to hit Thursday and Friday, leaving us a decent weekend. That sounds good, but the models have been struggling a little with storm timing the past few weeks, so I wouldn’t carve that in stone just yet.

As far as events the only thing that I know about is a fundraiser tomorrow at Country Inn (High Falls Rd & Newton Lake Rd) for the folks that stock High Falls Flowage with walleyes. It starts at 5:30 and a $7 ticket gets you a fish fry and an entry for door prizes including a two night stay at a cabin on Noquebay or a day of pontoon boat rental.

Next weekend (5-27) there is the McCaslin Lioness Faire in Lakewood, and the local Legion Club Memorial Day Service and picnic at the Silver Cliff Memorial Picnic Grounds. Note that both events are on a Sunday. Being Memorial Day weekend there will probably be additions to that list.

Last week I managed to get about half of my grass cut before running out of time, gas, and daylight. That half needs it again and the half that didn’t get cut is pretty shaggy. It is time for folks with weekend cabins to bring to mower along.

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

RJB