June 2013

Thursday June 27th, 2013

2:30pm Update

Paddler’s Alert!

Last night the Peshtigo River watershed saw an estimated 2-5″ of rain, and there are big storms up there again right now. Last night they had flood advisories out for the watershed. There is no question that the Peshtigo will have good rafting and rising water levels this weekend. Call Kosir’s and get in on some great summer rafting.

The flood advisory from my Facebook post last night..

“ESTIMATES BASED ON RADAR INDICATED THAT 3 TO 4 INCHES OF RAIN FELL IN AN AREA BOUNDED BY GAGEN… ARGONNE… LAONA… AND CRANDON. THE HEAVIEST RAINFALL…ESTIMATED AT NEARLY 5 INCHES…FELL MID-WAY BETWEEN CRANDON AND ARGONNE.”

Here are last night’s radar estimates.

That is pretty good, but here is the current radar, and the storms are going across the watershed like they are on a train track. This will be great for weekend paddling.

Overnight Update

Greetings and welcome!

Thank you for all of the compliments on the desktop background last week. I liked that one too and it is still my background. For you photographers.. I did it at a F22, 1/5th of a second at an ISO100. In short, it was a slow shutter speed and a steady hand.

So it looks like I didn’t need an ark this week. The really heavy rain went to the southern 1/3 of WI and the northern 1/3 of IL. One friend from northern IL suggested that he should sell his house quickly since lakefront property brings a higher price.

It was a tough pattern to call. The whole region was in warm wet air, and it was just a question of where some convection would get started and bring storms.

We did get some rain. We had close to an inch last Friday morning. There was a good downpour yesterday (Tue) morning that developed pretty much right over us. I could hear it on the roof before it showed up on radar. Tonight (Wed) we had a good line of storms come through that even had a few cracks of thunder with it. Between the three we are close to an inch and a half of rain for the past week.

A lot of people ignored the soggy weekend forecast last weekend and headed up north. They were well rewarded. In my travels we only had a few sprinkles Saturday afternoon, and those only lasted a minute or two. That is why I tell you to not change plans over a forecast. Be prepared for the rain, but don’t cancel on account of a forecast. I have seen a lot of nasty sounding weekends turn out great.

The warm and sticky weather is just about over. We have another day of high dew points, and after that we should be in for a very comfortable weekend with temps in the mid-70s. We have a chance of rain Thursday and Friday, and a 40% chance Saturday. I am not expecting a lot out of Saturday’s rain, in theory, the atmosphere will be pretty well worked over by then from the Thursday and Friday rain. Sunday looks nice.

The 4th of July lands on Thursday of next week.  As always there are a lot of events going on with it, but with the mid-week placement, they are scattered across the week and two weekends.

I spent a few hours tonight scouring papers and web sites to bring you a comprehensive event list. If I missed anything, leave a comment and I will add it. Here we go…

*** Indicates fireworks show

### Indicates parade
Friday June 30
Marinette County Breakfast on the Farm. Sunday, June 30, 2013. Church service at the farm 7:00a.m. Event 7:30a.m. – Noon. Mark & Dawn Carviou farm, W3201 County Road G, Marinette, WI. Petting zoo, face painting, balloons, kids bouncy play area, viewing of barns & cattle, wagon rides, music
Saturday June 29th
***Mountain 4th of July Celebration-Softball, Horseshoe, and Pool tournaments, biunce house Fireworks at dusk
Red Arrow ATV & Snowmobile Club Family Fun Day_Birch Hills Resort in Townsend-Club meeting 9am, trail ride 10am-1pm, fundraiser 1-5pm- Meat raffles, DJ- Fundraiser benefits Townsend Christian Fod Pantry and 2 Wabeno HS scholarships
4H Brat Fry to benefit the Grover-Porterfield VFD- 10:30am-1pm at the Porterfield Pit Stop

July 3&4
***###

4th of July Celebration at Zippel Park in Gillette
Tractor pull, Horse Pull,4×4 Truck Pull, Live Music
PARADE starts at 2:00 PM & FIREWORKS at dusk
Classic antique car show 9:00 AM –4:00 PM at Zippel Park
– See more at: http://www.ocontocounty.org/events/?i=4th-of-july-celebration-2013-07-03&d=2013-06&view=l#sthash.iYMNzUD3.dpuf

Thursday July 4th
### ***Crivitz 4th of July Parade and Celebration – Thursday July 4th @ 11:00am, Farmers & Flea Market  After the Parade at John Shaffer Pavilion… Food by VFW Post #2063 – Beverages & DJ Music by American Legion, Free Horse Drawn Wagon Rides & Bouncy Houses Fireworks at 10pm

Friday July 5th
Fundraiser Street Dance at Goodman Fire Hall 7-11pm -grilled burgers n brats, Bucket Raffles, music by Duct Tabe (Cest La vie
July 5th-7th
Crivitz Adult Men’s Slow Pitch Softball Tournament will be held at baseball field at intersection of Louisa Street and Hall Avenue on Friday evening and all day Saturday.  To register your team contact Dale at (715)927-1909 or Alex at (715)927-3181.

Saturday July 6th
***Friends of Chute Pond Celebration at Everbreeze Resort Music by Renage Band 3-7, fireworks at dark
***Goodman 4th of July Family Fest at Township Park on Hilbert Lake-10a-7pm- Bucket Raffles, games and face painting for the kids, 1pm flag retirement ceremony, Fireworks at dusk, bring a non-perishable food item for the food pantry.
Goodman Armstrong Creek Rescue Walk/Run-8am, starts at Ranger Station west of Goodman
Wausaukee Rec Assn Firecracker 5K run- Benefits area youth sports programs. Info on Wausaukee.com
###Wausaukee 4th of July Celebration- Parade at 1pm, food, trout pond, music, beer garden, crafters and vendors
***Twin Bridge Water Ski Show & Fireworks at Stephenson Town Park on High Falls Flowage 6:30pm
***Crivitz Ski Cats Water Ski Show & Fireworks at Lake Noquebay County Park 6:30pm
Kid’s Fishing Tournament at Birch Hills Resort

——————————-

When I went for a sunset ride last night there were plenty of deer. There were numerous E stops as they ran out in front of me. I was ready for it and didn’t bump any.

There were also more than a few birds along the road shoulder. I am not sure what they were, but their eyes reflected in the headlights, and they could fly pretty fast when they jumped.  My guess is that they were woodcocks. The second guess was whippoorwills, but there was no trademark song, and usually they are pretty vocal.

When I was driving home in the heavy rain last Thursday night I saw at least a half-dozen paper plate sized or bigger snapping turtles up on the road on a journey to lay eggs. I have seen three or four since, but they were all smaller. One was a little puzzling, he was at least a mile from the closest pond/creek/river/lake. That is a long way at turtle velocity.

The warm weather has brought time to get wet at the beaches and tubing down the river. Now the lakes and rivers are much warmer after the recent warm spell that went into the high 80s a few times. Time to jump in!

I always like to exit on a high note, and I have a good one today. From what I am seeing in the news, gas prices should be in the $3.50- $3.60 range over the holiday. That is still a dollar too high, but it is about 50 cents a gallon better than it was last week. It’s a start.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday June 20th, 2013

Dude Where’s My Ark?

Greetings and welcome!

It has been an interesting week for weather, and it looks like the next week or so will be too.

We had a couple of nights this week that got down to 37 and 38 degrees in the early morning hours. That was thanks to a cool air mass over us and some clear skies allowing radiational cooling. The days with it were pretty nice, with upper 60s Monday, low 70s Tuesday and upper 70s yesterday.

Yesterday was one of those unique northern WI days that started out with a small fire in the wood burner to take the chill off in the morning, and a brief running of the AC in the afternoon to bring the house back under 80.

The weather ahead is the focus of my attention this morning. We have a warm, moist unstable air mass moving our way, and it will put a chance of rain into the forecast pretty much daily for the next week, along with some 80+ temperatures.

Some of the atmospheric dynamics shown for over the weekend are pretty impressive. There will be plenty of moisture for the storms to work with, and a highly unstable atmosphere. The NWS forecast discussion mentions precipitable moisture values at 150-200% of normal, and CAPE values in the 2,500-3,500 J/KG range.

The CAPE values have my attention. According to the Tornado Chaser’s site, 2500-3500 is a very unstable atmosphere and 3,500+ is extremely unstable. With an atmosphere that unstable we can expect a chance at torrential rains, strong winds, and big hail.

Usually when I see CAPE values over about 2,000 I start worrying about severe weather. My memory is a fickle servant, but I am thinking that the CAPEs were in the low 2,000 range when the Riverview tornado came through. I am not sure why we are not seeing discussion of severe storms when CAPEs are considerably higher than that. There is a good chance that it will come as the heavy weather gets closer.

Anyway, we are looking at a wet weekend.

I am not expecting all day every day rain, but more like afternoon thunderstorms as the atmosphere gets whipped up by the sun, and the resulting storms lasting into the night.

In a scenario like this with a wet and very unstable atmosphere, it is almost impossible to say when or where it will rain. It could be one of those weekends where south of 64 they get pounded and we get away with a mostly dry weekend, or it could go the other way. All that I can say for sure is that somewhere in the upper Midwest is going to get a lot of rain and some big storms.

The moisture values in the wet atmosphere are pretty impressive. Right now the 5 day HPC QPF has us in the 2-2.5″ of rain range between 6am today and 6am Tuesday. The Hydrology section of the NWS forecast discussion is as follows..

.HYDROLOGY… ISSUED AT 418 AM CDT THU JUN 20 2013 SEVERAL COMPLEXES OF THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED FROM FRIDAY INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK. A VERY WARM AND HUMID AIR MASS WILL BECOME ENTRENCHED ACROSS THE REGION LATE THIS WEEK AND PERSIST INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK. PRECIPITABLE WATER VALUES BETWEEN 150 TO 200 PERCENT OF NORMAL ARE EXPECTED…LEADING TO THE LIKELIHOOD OF TORRENTIAL RAINS AND POTENTIAL FOR URBAN FLOODING DUE TO THE INTENSE RAINFALL RATES. ANY TRAINING OR SLOW MOVING THUNDERSTORMS WILL INCREASE THE RISK OF FLOODING. RAINFALL AMOUNTS OVER THE NEXT 5 DAYS SHOULD RANGE FROM 1 TO 3 INCHES WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS. WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED IF THERE WERE A FEW AMOUNTS CLOSE TO 5 INCHES IF STORMS MOVE OVER THE SAME REGION ON SEVERAL DAYS INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK. &&

So, it might be a wet weekend.

About the only event that I am seeing right now is a Saturday fundraiser at Randall’s Resort for the Mountain Ambulance Service. It runs from 10am-10pm with food, music and raffles, and is obviously for a good cause.

Unfortunately I don’t have a lot more on my outline to talk about today. It was another busy week with work. I can tell you that last night’s sunset was exceptional, but unfortunately I didn’t get to spend time watching it or take any pictures.

I did have a chance before one of the rafting trips last weekend to play with a little trick photography down by the river. It was cloudy at the time, and with a little manipulation of the camera settings I came away with a new desktop background. This is the image straight out of the camera, with no Photoshop or adjustment at all. I’ll share it in its full size, so you can have it too. Click it and when the big image loads, right click it and pick either save as.. or set as desktop background.

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

RJB

Friday June 14th, 2013

Greetings and welcome!

My apologies that I haven’t been updating the past few weeks. No I didn’t fall off of the side of the planet or get carried away by mosquitoes.  Work has been overwhelming lately, and life has been mostly about work or sleep. I haven’t gone fishing, had a campfire, or even finished cutting the grass yet this year, so it is pretty out of control. I usually avoid updating when I am cranky which is most of the time now. I figure if my friends want to hear some overtired old guy complain about work they probably know where to find that on their own.

We have been enjoying some pleasant weather lately. A lot of days have been beautiful and in the 70s. There was a warm one Tuesday when the bank clock in Wausaukee said 87 in the sun, but mostly it has been really nice out.

The great greening of the land has made huge progress since my last update. The understory of the forest has filled in, and the late spring variety of green shades has been spectacular. It all seems like it is a week or two behind normal this year. The ferns are up and growing, but they are not the waist deep bounty that they usually are by mid-June.

The usual assortment of bugs is present and accounted for. The wood ticks have been about normal, but the gators were late to the party this year. Those have been hit and miss. I have been to places with plentiful populations, and places that are normally bountiful with mosquitoes that I haven’t seen any.  I am way behind in my Repel usage this summer, with most of it going below the knee to keep the ticks at bay.

From what I have seen the fishing has been good this year. I have seen a lot of friends with some great bass and panfish catches. Tourism has been waaaay way down this summer, so other than Memorial Day weekend, the lakes and landings have been fairly quiet. Not only is that more relaxing for the fishermen, the fish are less wary than in a busy year. I am hoping to get in on a little of that myself very soon.

We have been having a spectacular spring for whitewater rafting water levels. This weekend looks like the first time in 2013 that we will have normal flows on the whitewater rivers, until now it has been above normal all year.

We have had colder than normal water temperatures thanks to the late thaw. Now it is getting to be about time to get wet. A visit to the new beach at Boat Landing #9 is probably in order, and some tubing and sit on top kayaking with Kosir’s on Caldron Falls flowage sounds fun too. I did both the tubing and kayaking last year and had a great time.

New this year they have pontoon boat cruises on Caldron Falls. They have a really nice new 27′ pontoon boat that they take people out on. You can get something like 10 people on it, and they are up for stuff like wine and sunset cruises, general tours, and maybe even some fishing. I was supposed to go out a week ago Tuesday, but rain squelched our plan. I do expect to get out there soon and will definitely bring the camera along to catch all of the scenery and stuff like eagle pictures.

There are a couple of events coming up this weekend. The local paper has a car, truck and bike show in Lakewood at the Pavilion Grounds Saturday from about 9-4.  The Cro9ked Lake/Mountain Lions Club is having a pancake and porkie breakfast Saturday from 8-11 at Mulligan’s Sports Bar on the south end of Lakewood. That is a benefit for the Christian Food Pantry in Townsend.

Saturday from 11-5 there is a fundraiser for the Forest Co ATV and LMT Trails snowmobile club at the Wabeno fairgrounds. There will be raffles, food and drink, and recreational equipment vendors on site. That is a benefit for trail maintenance and improvements.

This is also the weekend of the Porterfield Country Music Festival, a pretty big deal with some big name acts.

I am sure that there are more events for this weekend, but I haven’t been to town in a while, so I haven’t had a chance to scour posters.

The OWI Task Force has been hammering the Twin Bridge area most busy weekends this year. In the past they would put up a sign to increase awareness. Rumor has it that they are going to ditch the signs and just patrol the area on weekends all summer. You can still go there and go out and have fun, but make sure that you have your seat belt on, your vehicle in order, and if you plan to cocktail, use a designated driver or use the Safe Ride program to get home. Don’t feed the bears.

It looks like we have a nice weekend coming up. We are looking at 70s Saturday and 80s Sunday with only a minor chance of a passing shower. No complaints about that.

That is about it for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting.

RJB