2012

Friday July 6th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

The focus this week has been on the high water for whitewater rafting. That is still going on, and people hitting the water to raft this weekend are in for a treat. The Peshtigo is just now peaking from Monday’s big rains up north. Today it is at 503CFS, and the record flow from 2000 was 575. Not bad..

The Menominee River continues to run big too. It is still at 3,000CFS, a really fun and exciting level. Even the flat water tubing is better with the river warmer and less rocks to dodge. It will be a good weekend to get wet at Kosir’s.

There is other stuff going on this weekend too. There is a big biker poker run this weekend, the Super Dave Memorial Ride & Northeast Poker Run. You buy a book and get it stamped at the various trail stops, and the ride ends back at the Curve Inn (Just south of X on Parkway Rd by High Falls Flowage) with live music, cook out food, and drawings. A portion of the payout goes to a charitable cause.

The Iron Snowshoe Associate Members will be having a brat fry at Parkway Inn this Saturday, and they will also have the Brat Boat patrolling High Falls Flowage and selling the tasty links out on the water.

Here are more events..

The weather this weekend looks nice once we get past tonight. There is a line of storms expected to come through, followed by a drop in temperature into the low 80s for the weekend, along with clear weather.

The rain is expected to stay north of about Crivitz according to the models, but right now it is farther north than expected and mostly affecting areas north of the UP border. It could linger into morning, but the day should clear up and be very nice. The HPC has the bulk of it coming between midnight and 6am.

I have been hearing reports that the High Falls Flowage is a little lower than normal. Reports have it down six inches to a foot below normal, and some new obstacles are being encountered. If you play there be aware of new hazards.

Fisher’s Camp has a Redneck Yacht Club Build Yer Own Boat Race coming up next weekend on Caldron Falls Flowage. That could get interesting… Here is a poster, click it to make it bigger.

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

RJB

Thursday July 5th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

It has been a hot one in the north woods this week, and we aren’t short on humidity. Today looks like it will be the hottest of the week, with the NWS looking at upper 90s.

The humidity has been thick. As I crested a hill yesterday I could barely see Thunder Mountain 20 miles away for all of the humidity in the air. The large amount of moisture in the air has brought us some torrential downpours like the one on Monday night and the storms that hit the UP and north of about Hwy 8 last night. The atmosphere is loaded with heat and moisture, all that it takes is a trigger to set it off and bring torrential downpours.

There is a 20% chance of storms today, but those chances go up Friday (30%) and Friday night (70%) as some cooler air starts moving in from the north. We are expecting high 90s and humid today, Saturday will offer a lot less humidity and a high temp of about 80. A change like that probably won’t be a peaceful one, so I am expecting some pretty good storms when it does come.

The weekend looks nice with a hi/lo of about 80/55 and mostly clear weather. That trend looks like it will continue into next week.

It has been a busy week for the area. Everywhere there are cars & trucks with boats, campers, ATVs, jet skis, and other fun stuff to do. It wasn’t obvious last week when people would visit the area with the 4th holiday landing on Wednesday. Apparently a lot of people took the week off and headed up north. It is good to see the area busy after how slow it has been the past few years with the economy and high gas prices.

My early week prediction on high water on the whitewater rivers came in as pretty accurate. I guessed at about +6″ on the Peshtigo River, possibly as levels rocketed higher. It looks like we crossed the +6″ mark this morning, and the slope of the graph suggests that it is nearing the crest, probably reaching a peak today or tomorrow (assuming no more rain, which might not be a good assumption). The median flow volume on the Pesh for today is 229CFS, and as of the 4:45am reading it was at 503. Sweeeet!

I was taking pictures on the river yesterday and people were having a blast. There were flips and spills and some spectacular wipe outs, along with some epic pop-ups and burials as people smashed the big waves and holes. It was a great day to get wet and the Kosir Krew was all over it on the whitewater stretch.

A lot of people took advantage of the flat water tubing on the Peshtigo at Kosir’s too, there was a steady stream of people cooling off and floating down the Pesh all day.

I would be neglectful if I didn’t mention the Menominee River by Kosir’s. That river is running huge, and could well be on the rise again after the storms that hit Florence County and the UP last night. Right now it is running at 3,000CFS, a really incredibly fun level that will eat a 16′ raft with 10 people in it in some of the waves and holes. This is an old picture, but I am thinking that it was taken at about 3,500-4,000cfs. If I were out for a first order feeding of the adrenaline rat today I’d probably head for the Menominee with Kosir’s.

Gas prices in the area have been pretty steady at about $3.39. It isn’t great, but it is a lot better than it has been recently.

Well, the river calls so I am off to work and get wet doing it. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday July 3rd, 2012

High Water Alert!

Definitely plan on going whitewater rafting later this week and weekend!

Sunset came about a half hour early in Lakewood last night as a series of thunderstorms hit the area. When I was there at about 8:15 it was as dark as it would be an hour after sunset, and the clouds were ominous. There was an almost constant rumbling of thunder, and I drove home in a downpour that filled the tire tracks and threw the truck around.

There were three significant waves of storms, and they all hit the Peshtigo River watershed. There were flash flood warnings for Forest County, and the warned area really got hit.

Radar returns estimate between 2-6″ of rain in the Peshtigo River watershed, with most of it seeing 3-5″ and one spot 6-8″. The radar estimates are a tricky beast. Sometimes they are pretty accurate, sometimes they come in about half of what is in my rain gauge.

I am going to guess that we saw at least as much as shown, and maybe a lot more. I was watching the lightning out of the north window, and it went on until about 3am.

It must have been a good storm, the WPS web site is showing about 4,400 people out of power in the Wabeno area. There was a LOT of lightning.

Here in Silver Cliff I would estimate that we saw about 3/4″-1″ of rain based on the puddles and washouts in the driveway. There was not much for high winds or hail, but we did have a little lightning. One strike had to be right out back, the light lit up the living room and the thunder was immediate.

Most of the action was to our north and west, and I have a first hand report that it was a pretty bad storm.

We were actually pretty lucky with the timing of the storm. With the moisture levels and instability of the atmosphere the storms could have easily gone severe had they come in the heat of the afternoon.

Here are a couple of screen caps of the radar estimates. This one is from the Intellicast radar on the left side of the page.

I outlined a very rough approximation of the Peshtigo River watershed in pink.

Here is the NWS version from about 3am last night…

The green box is the flash flood warning area. You can see that not only did Forest Co get pounded, much of northern Oconto County and central Marinette Co saw heavy rains too.

Anyway, the rain should translate into some great water for whitewater rafting on the Peshtigo and Menominee Rivers late week and this weekend. I would recommend calling Kosir’s and making plans to go rafting this weekend. Right now I can only offer a wild guess on water levels, but that has it breaking the +6″ mark, and possibly doing it as it rockets well past it.

Anyway, work calls, so I have to run. I will update more later in the week once we get past the 2-3 day delay the Peshtigo has bringing water to the whitewater section and we see firsthand how much water we really get. I am expecting good things though.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

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