2017

Saturday 9-2-17

3:30pm

Greetings and welcome!

The weather has me an unhappy guy today. The unexpected rain soaked a lot of events and activities and cost me a day of pictures on the river. I will be back doing pictures tomorrow.

I was expecting a little rain in the morning and then some later in the day.

Saturday doesn’t look very heavy, but the best chance from what I can see is about 1 or 2pm until after sunset. Monday is far enough away that the timing is hard to call. What I am seeing now is a minor chance in the morning and a better chance later.

What we ended up with was rain starting about 10am and letting up about 2pm. The radar was mostly yellow and dark green, indicating a pretty good rainfall rate. I have to question the radar return’s assessment of rainfall here, we are in the 0.3-0.6″ shading and I think that we had well over 1/2″ of rain. It was running down the driveway making ruts. Here is a graphic of the radar rainfall estimates that I screen capped a little before 3pm..

There is still a chance of more showers. The radar is showing some rain west of Rhinelander heading this way. It doesn’t look like much, but neither did our mid-day line that far west.

Tomorrow the NWS has us for sunny and a high of 78, and the river will be up and rowdy from all of the rain.

RJB

Thursday August 31, 2017

Greetings and welcome!

The weather for the weekend is first on the list today. It looks nice with the exception of rain chances Saturday afternoon and again Monday. Saturday doesn’t look very heavy, but the best chance from what I can see is about 1 or 2pm until after sunset. Monday is far enough away that the timing is hard to call. What I am seeing now is a minor chance in the morning and a better chance later.

Yesterday we had a jammin’ little thunderstorm roll through the area. The first line came, pounded on the roof for a couple of minutes and was gone. I’m thinking, that can’t be it..radar returns were showing a 1/2″ rainfall. That wasn’t it. The thunder came and the rain pounded pretty good. The USGS gauge by Kosir’s showed just under 1/2″.

That rain and the rain from the recent past have the Peshtigo River in great shape for the weekend. It is running at 414cfs, well above the typical flow of about 190cfs. That translates to about a +4 or +5, fun, but not enormous. Put rafting and tubing on your list of stuff to do this weekend.

I have three events to add for the weekend..

Sunday September 3rd-

Caldron Falls 2nd annual Labor Day Pig/Corn Roast

Live Music By “Jamus Unplugged”Free pig/corn roast from 4 to 10 pm

I don’t know how I missed these two, they have been Labor Day Weekend favorite events for 30+ years..

Also be aware that the weekend after Labor Day is Parkway Inn’s Country Fling.

I don’t have anything to add, so I am going back to work. It is a nice day outside and I am taking advantage of that.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday 8-29-17

Greetings and welcome!

The signs that summer is almost over are hard to miss. Some of the underbrush and ferns are starting to die back, and a couple of maple trees have the first splashes of color. I have a perfect track record of being 100% wrong predicting the fall colors, so I am not even going to try. It is in the very earliest stages though.

Next up on the list is weather for the big holiday weekend. Let’s start with I don’t know yet. Right now the GFS forecast model is showing a nice weekend with only a minor chance of rain on Saturday.

The I don’t know dynamic is the hurricane devastating Huston and surrounding areas right now. I have seen a variety of scenarios on how that ends. One sends it up the east coast. Another sends it up the Mississippi River Valley and then the Ohio River Valley, where it redevelops over New England. Both of those scenarios should leave us a mostly nice weekend.

I also saw one scenario where it tracked up the Mississippi River and ended up in SE WI. Depending on the timing of it, the storm could affect our weekend if that scenario came to be. Right now I see that as the least likely outcome.

So the glass is half full right now, but check on the weather for changes late week.

The endless summer of whitewater on the Peshtigo Rive looks like it will make it through Labor Day Weekend without ever hitting zero. We will be in the fun zone again this weekend. Right now it is running at about a +5 or +6, and the graph is at a flat line. Normally it would be about -3″ and too rocky for most people. Between the current  flow of 440cfs and some rain possible tomorrow, rafting and tubing for the weekend should be a lock.

As far as events go, I do not have anything new to add, so I will refer you to last week’s updates.

On the personal side I am in panic mode on fall work. I know that I can do it now or I can do it in less ideal weather. A hard lesson learned is that September is usually pretty nice, but as we get closer to October the increased unsettled weather and shorter days gives me a lot less time than it looks like on the calendar. I have had a great summer, but self employment has left me very busy and neglecting my outside work. Time to be driven.

On that note, I am off to work outside on cars, firewood or something else that I don’t want to do at 40 degrees.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 8-25-17

Greetings and welcome!

The weather forecast has changed a little. Right now my guidance and the pro forecasts agree that we will likely see some rain Saturday night and Sunday. It looks like the bulk of the rain will come overnight Saturday night. The TV showed Lakewood getting as much as an inch. My models show the rain continuing into Sunday and Monday, but not as heavy.

There is a little room to move on the timing of the rain. I have seen where the chances increased as early as about dinner time Saturday on the early side, all the way up to the rain starting after 1 or 2 am Sunday morning.

The good news here is that we are expecting a good day Saturday. I am a little nervous about that, the radar that I am looking at now already has rain in the western 1/3 of WI.

I have an event to add for Saturday/Saturday night.. The grand opening party for Todd & Barb’s Rapids Resort. It starts Saturday night at 5pm. For $15 you get a pig roast, free beer, live music, and drawings and giveaways.

The white fungus that I had pictures of on Wednesday isn’t a fungus at all, but rather a flower. Thank you to Amanda and Joanne for leaving comments on Wednesday’s post!

Amanda
Thanks for the nice blog. The translucent plant you found is actually a flower, a parasitic flower called Indian pipe. I learned about this when I hiked in Smokey Mountain National Park. I seen a fair amount this last weekend at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore too. Nice find!

Joanne
The white mushroom is actually a plant called “Indian Pipe”. It has no chlorophyll which makes it look white. It is a member of the blueberry family. Apparently, finding a large number of them is pretty rare. Thanks for sharing!

With their guidance I researched it more and it is quite an interesting plant. Google up Indian Flower or Ghost Plant to learn more about it.

It looks like the summer of record whitewater on the Peshtigo River will make it all of the way through Labor Day. I checked the USGS gauge a minute ago and it seems to be leveling off at 363cfs, about a +3″. I consider anything above 300cfs to be the fun zone, and we are good for the weekend.

I have never seen a year where the Pesh never hit 0″, considered its normal summer flow, all year. It might get close this weekend, but I’d be surprised to see it happen. The rain Saturday night-Monday and again late next week should make the party continue for Labor Day weekend.

A travel note.. I saw on the news that they will be doing road construction on Hwy 32 from Mountain up to the Forest Co line near Carter. Apparently they are replacing culvert pipes and improving drainage. They spoke of one lane roads and flagging operations. I did not see anything about it on the WI511 site, so all that I have to go on is the morning news report. When I drove 32 north from Lakewood to Wabeno last Sunday there was construction equipment parked along the road. I have not been by there since.

The hurricane/tropical storm heading for Texas has been in the news. It isn’t that strong of a hurricane with a central pressure of about 990mb, but there is a significant pressure gradient (lots of wind) and the models show it setting up camp and staying in the same spot for 4-5 days. With a 990 central pressure the storm urge shouldn’t be enormous, but is the models play out they could get 2 to 3 feet of rain. Yowza.

I am not quite sold on the idea of it just getting pinned to the map with a thumbtack and staying in one spot for 5 days, but I guess that it is possible. It will be a heck of a mess if it does.

Closer to home, you might want to top off gas tanks before the price goes crazy. Texas has a lot of our gas production, refining, and distribution, and it will all get shut down for the storm. I just checked GasBuddy.com and as of yesterday Crivitz hadn’t moved ($2.34), and the couple of fresh reports in Green Bay show their prices steady at $2.29. If they shut down that area for a week or more those prices will be a fond memory.

It is my hope that the hurricane dissipates and spares a lot of people a lot of challenges.

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

RJB