2019

Friday October 3rd, 2019

Greetings and welcome!

When I did my update earlier in the week I was sure that I was missing an event. It haunted me until I figured it out. Saturday is Wausaukee’s Fall Festival. They will have vendors, a farmers market, live music, and free horse drawn wagon rides. This is all right on Main St in Wausaukee.

The weather for the weekend looks like a 50/50 split. The NWS says that rain will start early Saturday morning and continue into Saturday night. They are looking at a 90% chance Saturday and 70% Saturday night

More of interest to me is both Saturday and Sunday are expected to be windy days with winds up to 30mph. Mother Nature just can’t let us have a nice fall color show without blowing some of it away. Not to worry, the fall colors are a little behind this year. The maple, beech, and cottonwood(popple) are all in color right now. Later species are not even starting yet. The patchwork hillsides are getting there but are still a little early.

The fall temperatures are making a return after a warm wet week. Tonight and Friday night we could see low temperatures around 38 degrees, and Saturday night the expected low is 45. The TV says that we could see a little patchy frost tonight in some areas. Daytime temperatures are expected to be in the mid-50s through Saturday and Sunday could get close to 60.

The USGS gauge by Rapids Resort/Kosir’s shows 1.2″ of rainfall since Monday and a 30 day total of 6.4″.

Will it ever stop raining!?! The forecast today shows dry weather possible Sunday-Wednesday or Thursday of next week. I have three decks to stain & seal before winter and they are just waterlogged from all of the rain. It seems like we can’t get three days in a row without some rain. Hopefully they will dry out enough to treat before the temperature goes below 50º. My Magic 8 Ball just laughed at me when I asked if we might have three or four dry days before it got too cold. Not cool.

One last thought.. beware of deer up by the roads. The rain makes them move around a lot and they seem to like the green grass in the ditches. They get stupid in the fall anyway as the rut approaches, and now the wet weather has them active by the roads too. Be careful.

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

RJB

Tuesday October 1 2019

Greetings and welcome!

Well guess what? It rained today. It rained yesterday too. There is another chance of rain Wednesday night and Saturday night too.

The storm tonight has us on the northern precipitation bands. The southern precip bands are really heavy and some places south of Lake Winnebago have flash flood and flood warnings out. My frequent thought watching the radar is that this would be a good snow storm for us, probably at least a 3-6″ snow.

At any rate the puddles, ponds, swamps, and lowlands are all full of water. The Peshtigo River continues to run at about a +6″, probably 5-6″ above its typical flow. The ground is plenty soggy.

You have seen me suggest that the USGS rainfall gauge understated what I thought that our rainfall was that day many times. I checked the graph and it shows 6.59″ for the past 30 days. That is plenty of rain, especially after our wet summer.

The damp weather and wet ground have produced quite a few mushrooms and fungi, many of which I have never seen before. Again I will try to get some pictures.

Our wet pattern is also a warm one and I don’t see a chance of snow anytime soon. My standard thought is that we could have snow anytime after October 10th. This year it might be a little later in the month. We still have not had our first frost yet. They did have a big storm in East Glacier National Park in Montana. Five feet of snow fell in 24 hours.

The view out of my kitchen window this morning was a beautiful one. The fog and mist from the warm wet weather shrouded the trees that were bright with fall color.

The fall colors are getting really nice. A few days ago there was color but I wasn’t all that impressed. My ride today was beautiful. My travels took me from Silver Cliff to Crooked Lake and to Crivitz and back home via Hwy A. The maples and beeches are just coming into their prime. Some have leaves that are partially green and bright yellow on the ends. The wet weather and heavy overcast made the colors stand out even more. I wish that I wasn’t in such a big hurry today, I would have loved to have done about 100 pictures.

This weekend there is a gun show in Crivitz, and the Happy Schnaaps Combo is playing at a party at the Pour House in Lakewood. In Townsend there is an ATV fall color ride, free booyah, and a meat raffle with the Old Town Hall restaurant and and the Red Arrow Snowmobile/ATV Club.

Last weekend and this week roughly 125 volunteers from Team Rubicon are in town. They are a veterans service group that goes around and helps with disaster recovery. They are here to clear decimated snowmobile trails in Forest, Oconto, and Langlade Counties.

The big storm wrecked over 400 square miles of forest and a lot of the snowmobile trails in three counties are in terrible shape. The clubs and forest service got the ATV trails open in about a month. They have about 400 miles of forest roads open, and almost 200 miles remain closed. The snowmobile trails were a lower priority and now need to be addressed. My hat is off to those volunteers from Team Rubicon who came with people and equipment to deal with the disaster.

Feeding 125 hard working people 3 meals a day for  9 days is no small affair. Donations and volunteers are welcome! Donations can be sent via Chute Pond Snowmobile Club, The Team Rubicon web site, or Kelly’s Mountaintop in Mountain.

That is it for me tonight. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday 9-24-19

Greetings and welcome!

It would be hard to goof up last weekend’s forecast any worse than I did. I was predicting rain Saturday and a nice day Sunday. Saturday was a dreary day but we didn’t see much for measurable rainfall. Sunday it rained for much of the day and into Monday morning.

The USGS gauge says that Sunday’s rain was about 1/2”. I am not so sure, some of the storms pounded pretty hard on the roof.

There are rain chances again tonight and Friday. Tonight’s rain could get heavy and there is a slight risk of severe weather. Once Friday’s rain clears out we should have a good weekend, but the timing of the storm only needs to change a little to change that in a big way.

The rain has become a little bit of a problem in my world. I have a couple of decks that need staining before winter or they will see damage. With it raining every two or three days they are far too wet to stain. The heavy dew from the diurnal temperature change isn’t on my side either. When I checked one yesterday it was really wet. I could use some nice dry sunny days to dry them out. So far the forecast isn’t on my side.

People with muddy roads or puddles will have both. It has been a very wet fall.

The fall colors don’t seem to have changed all that much in the past few days. The early color is here, but the late stuff isn’t starting yet.

Events this weekend include the Silver Cliff Soup and Chili Festival, a fall festival and ride in Crooked Lake, and the Toys For Joy ride at Prospect Lodge.

The Peshtigo River continues to run above normal. Typically it would be at about zero, and a little over 200cfs. This morning it is at about a +5” and 500cfs.

Time to get back to work. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday September 20, 2019

Greetings and welcome!

We has some more rain Wednesday night/Thursday morning. There was thunder and lightning and some heavy downpours. I would guess that we had close to an inch of rain here. The USGS gauge says 1/2″ and again I think that reading is a little understated.

That storm was redeveloping right over us and a little to our west. It didn’t hit the upper Peshtigo River watershed too much but the lower watershed ( I consider that from about Goodman Park and downstream) got a good drink of water. The Pesh is running at about a +6″ right now.

That storm moved off to the east and stalled over the UP between about Escanaba and Menominee, MI. The radar suggested that they saw 5-6″ of rain in one night. There were flood watches and warnings and everything. It had to do damage, but I guess that they should be happy that it wasn’t a snow storm, or God forbid, an ice storm.

All of the moisture from recent storms along with big temperature swings from night to day have left us with some foggy mornings. It is kind of pretty out of the back window, but not much fun to drive in.

The fall colors are looking nice for the early show. Some late species like the oaks are not changing at all yet. The early show is here and getting better daily.

I do not have any new events for this weekend. The Silver Cliff Soup & Chili Festival is coming up next weekend (9-28) and there is some sort of fall festival and poker run down in Crooked Lake that weekend too.

The weather this weekend looks a little better than expected. Saturday we might get a break in the rain from late morning to mid-afternoon, then rain and T-storms are likely. I have seen several different takes on the timing of all of that, so that forecast is a little wishy-washy, but rain in the afternoon and night seems likely. It is expected to clear out Sunday morning and leave us with a decent day.

I can tell you that a little overcast or a damp day is not a bad thing when checking out the fall colors. It really makes the colors stand out nicely. If Saturday is too damp and rainy to do stuff outside jump into the car and go on a fall color tour. The areas with a lot of maple are really nice right now.

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

RJB