2020

Friday May 22, 2020

Greetings and welcome!
The big holiday weekend is finally here!
We have what looks like a mostly nice weekend ahead, but there are some rain chances.
As far as the weather goes we are looking at low 70s for Friday and Saturday, and upper 70s Sunday. As far as rain it looks like the best chances will mostly be at night, but there is at least a slight chance daily. Monday brings the best chance for rain. I would not change plans over it, but be ready for anything.
The NWS also put out a hazardous weather outlook for fog along Lake Michigan for tonight and Saturday night. That mostly concerns travelers going up I-43.
The bugs have woken up. Bring Repel. I use the 40% stuff. The main pests this week were wood ticks and gnats. The gators (mosquitoes) should be along any time now.
The whitewater rafting this weekend will be excellent. The Peshtigo River is running at +11” at the moment, and the Menominee is at about 3,000cfs. Both are excellent water levels for rafting. Call Kosir’s 715-757-3431.
If places that you go are in lowlands or swamps bring your water wings. Those areas are really full of water after the early week rains of 1.5” here and more in some areas.
There is live music at Caldron Falls Bar Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon at Rustic Inn. The CFB is having the Outlaw Junkies, and the Rustic is having Augie from Fisher’s Camp. I have never seen the first band but Augie is amazing.
Most of the bars and restaurants are open for business. A few have decided to stay at carry-outs only or outside service.
It looks like it will be a busy weekend. At 8am Friday morning the cell phone based internet is already pathetically slow. Right now a click of a link brings about a 3 minute wait time. I can’t wait to see how bad it is once people get here tonight and tomorrow.
It looks like a good holiday weekend ahead. Have fun and stay safe!
Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB

Sunday May 17th, 2020

Greetings and welcome!

We had a very busy Friday and Saturday in the area. It was good to see people coming back around and the area businesses bustling. Today is a lot quieter with the rain. Folks that headed out this morning made a good choice, it has been raining all day. It has been a steady rain with lighter and heavier waves. The NWS Hazardous Weather Outlook from 3pm said that we could see 1-3″ of additional rain tonight and tomorrow.

The storm is a dandy. It is a slow moving area of low pressure that has nice moisture support from the Gulf of Mexico. It is going to be with us for a few days and it will have plenty of moisture to bring rain. The Weather Underground is already reporting 0.76″ in Silver Cliff and 0.57″ as of 5:45pm Sunday.

A couple of thoughts about the rain..

The first one is that Memorial Day weekend whitewater rafters will be in for a treat. The Peshtigo is at about a +7″ right now, a great level for just about anyone. The watershed has been getting hit with rain and will continue to get hit into tomorrow. That will bring the river up to really nice levels for next weekend, especially if we get a couple of more inches of rain.

Next is that the rain is just what we need to fuel the green explosion. We are behind quite a bit this year on the great greening of the land. With the late start and the big rain nature is going to go off like a firecracker. Right now the cottonwoods have gone from hazy first leaves to a good start on a canopy in less than a week. The maples have red flowers. The choke cherries have started blooming, and a friend saw his first trillium a few days ago.

So far the bugs haven’t been bad. I have had a few annoying gnats, a couple of wood ticks, and exactly two mosquitoes. I haven’t used Repel at all yet this year, but I will be looking for it this week. My guess is that the bug world will benefit from the rain just like the green plants.

I have noticed over the years that usually the second or third week of May we get a cut off low pressure area that brings us 2-3 days of nice steady rain. Here we are again. Some years it comes earlier or later, but it is here just about every year. One year it came on Memorial Day weekend and no one liked it when it rained for three days straight. This year it seems well timed.

The final thought on the rain is that hopefully it will keep fire danger low for the big holiday weekend. We are still under a burning ban where brush burning and burning permits have been suspended between dry grass from last year and COVID fears. You can still have a grill or a campfire but they were being discouraged.

The weather this week looks nice right through the weekend once the rain clears out. We could see 70s (even upper 70s late week and for the weekend) and nice weather. There is a chance of showers Saturday that doesn’t look like anything organized. Stay tuned on the weather forecast, It’s a 5 day outlook and timing is everything.

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

RJB

Thursday May 14th, 2020

Greetings and welcome!

It is a dreary day outside but the sun is shining for Wisconsin businesses that can re-open as a result of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision. The dust is still settling and people are still figuring out re-opening plans.

I read the Supreme Court decision last night and the way that I am reading it they did not put any delay in re-opening in their ruling. The Tavern League agrees with my interpretation and they say that bars and restaurants can re-open immediately.

There is a lot for the bars and restaurants to get a handle on. They need to organize employees, get inventory, figure out distancing and sanitation protocols, and all sorts of stuff. The Supreme Court decision was immediate leaving a lot of people scrambling.

It is only 10am the next day so I have limited info. So far Trailside in Crooked Lake is opening today at 4pm. Rapids Resort is opening at noon today.  Woody’s, Firelane, and Riverside are opening tomorrow. That is all that I have right now. I would expect most places to open for the weekend.

The big greening of the land is a little behind this year. When I was out driving this week I could still see well into the woods. Usually that starts changing about may 10th. I am starting to see fern fiddle heads and the black raspberries are starting to get first hints of leaves. I would expect a lot of changes really fast over the next two weeks. That is why I call it the green explosion.

The weekend weather looks a lot nicer than the cold weather this week. Friday we are looking at mid-60s and sunny, and Saturday looks about the same. Saturday night and Sunday I am expecting rain, and Sunday might only be in the mid-50s.

The whitewater rafting is still an excellent choice for weekend fun. The Peshtigo River is still running at about +7″, a very fun level.

The lakes are not warming up quite as fast as I would like to see. We had cold weather this week including some nights in the 20s. This weekend should start moving the water temperatures upward, and next week we should see some days in the 70s.

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

RJB

Friday (March?) 5/8/2020

Greetings and welcome!

We are in the midst of a cold snap that is bringing near record low temperatures. Last night we got down to 26 and at 1:30pm it is still only 37 degrees. There are freeze warnings out for plants and plumbing. The bad news is that it isn’t going to get much better for almost a week. I looked at the GFS forecast model and could see cold air pouring out of arctic right into the upper Midwest. Our normal high should be getting close to 60, and our normal low should be over freezing.

One other note, when Fido needed to go out in the middle of the night last night, she came back in with snowflakes on her. Now I know why they call it May.. It may be 65 or 70 or it May feel like February.

Right now I am taking refuge from the cold and using the time to catch up on computer work inside, and later I will head to the parts store. I really want to be cutting brush, working on cars and power equipment and the boats, but I won’t be doing any of that at 36 degrees unless it is an emergency.

One thought this morning is that a week of cold weather like this will slow down the warming of the lakes, and probably set back the spawning times of the fish. I guess that makes it OK that I am not working on the boats yet.

In addition to the cold weather we again have some very high fire danger. We have very low humidity (36% right now, but it could drop to 20% or lower) and some wind. Combined with the dead vegetation from last year, fire danger is very high today. There isn’t much in the way of precip expected in the short term, so that very high fire danger will last through the weekend.

We do have some signs of spring going on. The trees are budding and getting close to opening up with the first leaves. I saw my first marsh marigolds yesterday. I also had my first wood tick of the year a few days ago. People have been reporting wood and deer ticks for several weeks. FaceBook friends have reported seeing their first hummingbirds and orioles in the past week.

I saw in the news that our governor thinks that there will be no delays in opening the state up after Memorial Day weekend. It wold be great if they opened a week or two before that so businesses can recover from the lockdown. There is a case in the state supreme court challenging the order lasting past the 60 days. There was no word this morning on how that is going. I know that people around here are ready to get back to normal.

One last thought about the cold weather.. After living here 20+ years I learned the hard way… I never plant outside plants until after June 10th. Every time that I did I got frozen out. The new path was to start everything in movable containers that I could move inside on cold nights, then transplant them in mid-June.

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

RJB