April 2019

Friday 4-26-19

Greetings and welcome!

A very quick update this morning.

River levels- The Pesh is still crankin’ but it has dropped a couple of inches since Wednesday. It is in the low 30s. My wild guess of +24 to +30 for Saturday was a good one. If you get a chance check out the Menominee River. That has been running between 12 and 15 thousand through the gorge.

PeshFest- I forgot to mention that the band lineup changed slightly, but there are still two bands tonight and the same music shown on the poster Saturday night. I asked Todd what is for dinner Saturday night. He said that he was going to slow smoke some pork shoulders and some chickens. Add in the traditional fixin’s like mashed potatoes, veggies, biscuits, and so on.

Weather- After my update Wednesday the forecast changed. Thankfully it changed back. At one point they were showing snow all of the way to the U.P. border. Now the snow will not be anywhere near us, it will be all well south of Green Bay. The TV just showed a winter storm watch for IL/WI border counties. This morning they showed northern IL getting as much as 5″ or more.

Here in Silver Cliff we are expecting increasing clouds and mid-40s for Saturday and sunny & 52 Sunday.

There is a snow storm showing up for Northern WI for Monday tho.. that one could be 3-6.

Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Wednesday 4-24-19

Greetings and welcome!
We have a lot to talk about today.

First up is the big paddler’s festival at Kosir’s this weekend. It starts Friday night with live music. There will be on water races and activities Saturday, followed by a Saturday evening meal, usually something that Todd slow cooked or smoked on the grill. Follow that up with more music Saturday night. The on-water activities continue Sunday at a more casual pace with shuttles to the put in at your own timing. This event has been growing and I’d be surprised if we didn’t see a few hundred paddlers. Here is a poster about it.

That brings us to river levels. The Peshtigo has been breaking daily records all week. The gauge has been there 20 years. Today we are running at 2,450CFS, about a +37″. The record for today was 1,740 back in 2008. It has been like that since the weekend, breaking records daily. It looks like it is starting to come down a little today. My wild guess ( and that is all that it is..) is for the water to be some where in the +24 to +30 range for the weekend.

This is serious water, and just a treat for whitewater rafting and paddling.  This is paradise for hard boaters and huge adrenaline adventure for people that raft. Call Kosir’s and get in on the fun. 715-757-3431.

This week has brought an amazing transformation from winter to spring. The days are getting nicer and the grass went from snow covered to very green in a very short time. I saw my first moth this week. I have not seen the gators (mosquitoes), ticks, or gnats yet but they have to be coming soon. The spring peeper frogs in my pond are really loud now. Vreep.

I have not seen the first leaves yet, but again they are not far off.  Some of the poplars/cottonwoods/birch trees are starting to get their first catkins. They give the tree  kind of hazy look at a distance. The maples should be coming with their little red flowers any day now.

There is a minor detour in Crivitz on Hwy A. They are working on some sort of water project right in front of the Police station. You end up going a block south onto W and following that a couple of blocks and back to A. It is a pretty minor disruption.

The last thing on my list is weekend weather. Friday looks great  with sunny and 56 for a high. Both Friday and Saturday night are headed for a low of 28 according to the NWS.

Saturday gets interesting. There is a big storm shown missing us just to the south. That storm is expected to draw in some cold Canadian air, giving us a high in the low 40s. The forecast animation on the 5pm news tonight showed the north side of the storm actually having  little snow and mixed rain and snow. Much to my delight it also showed the storm staying south of Hwy 64. Thirty or forty miles isn’t much of a margin in the context of a 3 day out forecast, but I’ll take it. The NWS put a 40% chance on us seeing some sort of precip. Keep an eye on the forecast.

Someone asked how the frost-out was coming along. It varies  lot from place to place. The sunny spots in my driveway are firm but wet. I can drive on them making only minor impressions. More sheltered areas are still pretty soft, and low areas are holding a lot of water. We are making good progress. There was not a deep frost thanks to all of the snow, but there is a lot of moisture.

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

RJB

Friday April 19th, 2019

Greetings and welcome!

-Water water everywhere!

The big thaw is here.

Tuesday after I wrote my update I headed to work in Crivitz. It was a beautiful 65 degree sunny day. On the way home a little before sunset I could not believe how much snow had melted. Entire fields that were white at noon were completely free of snow at 7pm. The snow in the woods got a little patchier too. Creeks and rivers were at bank full stage.

Wednesday wasn’t quite as warm or quite as sunny. Wednesday afternoon and night brought some pretty good rains and even a few rumbles of thunder. The estimated rainfall out of that was about 1.5″. It would not surprise me at all if local rain gauges had more than that. I would guess at 2″.  That took down a lot of snow too.

At that point the creeks and rivers are going over their banks, and the swamps that feed them have a lot of water. There are flood warnings on the Pike River near Amberg, the Peshtigo and Menominee Rivers closer to Marinette, as well as other regional rivers.

Most places aren’t affected at all, but low spots, flood plains and drainage areas have plenty of water. I have been watching Eagle Creek at Hwy C and it is well over its banks.

The Peshtigo River is running at 2,200cfs, about +33 or +34″. I predicted 30 Tuesday. It blew through that running. The slope of the graph suggests that +36″ seems likely.

It is not the highest that it has been on this day, but it is close. Right now it is at 2,170cfs, and the record high (20 yrs history) was 2,310cfs.  By my goesintas that is about 6% below the record for this day. Not bad.. We will see how tomorrow goes. Keep in mind that it is just today’s record. I have seen it go into the low 50s, and the locals tell of it getting even higher.

At any rate it is going to be some epic whitewater this weekend. It is going to be 65 and sunny and the river will be at its prime. Call Kosir’s at 715-757-3431 and get some real big adventure.

Beyond the wet week and high water.. I am glad that the snow is finally gone. I am seeing landmarks in the yard that I haven’t seen in months. I am very much looking forward to getting a head start on spring cleanup. The north side of the house is still holding snow, the rest of the yard is mostly bare. The driveway is firming up nicely except in the usual muddy spots that are deep.

The deer and turkeys are out by the roads a lot now. I have seen quite a few tom turkeys in full display showing off in the past few days. Also out by the road were porcupines and grey squirrels.

One last thought.. Tuesday when I was near Crooked Lake I saw that Boundary Lake was opening up on the edges. That process has started, and the rain will likely speed it up.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB

Tuesday April 16th, 2019

Greetings and welcome!

We did not get any extra snow after my last update. What we did get was some rain on top of the snow. We peaked at about a foot, and it was down to about 8″ by the time that it stopped raining.

The snow that was left behind was incredibly dense and a real pain to move or drive through. The snowblower would ride up over the packed snow so a second pass was required. A lot of places did not plow because the ground under the snow was so soft and the snow was so heavy. Normally in mid-April it would be gone in a day or two. Not this cement snow.

It took a couple of days to melt most of it. Some is still there where it was piled or the sun couldn’t hit it. My driveway got plowed and snowblowed and is back to soft ground. The snow piles remain. Sheltered areas have a very different story, most of the snow is still there.

One thing that the snow did do for us is slow the spring melt runoff. The Peshtigo River dropped about 6″ and has not come back up yet. It is running at about +20″, a great level for whitewater. The smaller creeks and rivers saw the same effect, going from over the banks to just close to it. That is all going to change.

There is a storm for Wednesday afternoon into Thursday that is expected to bring showers and thunderstorms. We could see 1-2″ of rainfall. The rain/snow line on this one is way up in Canada, so hopefully it does not clobber us with another big snow storm.

That rain combined with some upper 50s Friday and mid-60s for the weekend should put the melting process up to go into high gear. I expect the whitewater rafting this weekend to be exceptional, and I would be very surprised if Saturday morning rafters were paddling in 30″ or less for river levels.

The Peshtigo River has certain water levels where it changes dramatically. One of those levels that I have noticed over the years is +28. At +28 the rapids change a lot and the river just goes huge. If you ever have run the river over +28 you know what I am talking about. It is the kind of whitewater that made the Peshtigo world famous. Anything over about 300cfs is really fun. This isn’t like that. This is big eyes full throttle adrenaline buzz grin for two days after kind of fun. I have pictures of 16 foot rafts with a dozen people just disappearing in the rapids at these levels. Take off of work, stand up your mother in law, whatever it takes.. get to Kosir’s this Saturday.

This weekend is Easter. The following weekend the 27th and 28th, is PeshFest at Kosirs. That is a big whitewater weekend where hundreds of boaters get together and eat good, drink, take in live music, and have races and activities on the river. The river will be in its prime for this year’s festival. There are places with 2′ of snow still in the woods and the melting will be in overdrive next week. There will be awesome water levels-guaranteed.

As far as getting into weekend places, conditions vary a lot. My driveway has firm but muddy spots and sheltered spots that are still soft from frost coming out of the ground. Not everyone has it that good. Some places still have a lot of snow, or a lot of snow on top of mud and standing water.

As far as ATV trails opening back up, it is going to be a while. As mentioned above there are sheltered places that still hold a couple of feet of snow, and it isn’t fast melting puffy stuff. The good news is that there isn’t much frost in the ground under the snow, so once it melts the ground will dry out pretty fast.

The lakes are still holding ice, but I don’t see it lasting into May. There is a good chance that they will be clear by the opening of fishing season.

In the world of critters I have seen a lot of turkeys and deer out by the roadsides, and especially sunny southern exposure hillsides. Watch it when you are driving. They both blend in with the grass.

The robins came back last week and promptly got snowed on. Several people reported big flocks of the around the trees where they could get some food. Finding worms under 8″ of cement snow was not going well for the couple that I saw around the house.

Time to make the donuts. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB