Greetings and welcome!
It is a cool and sunny day. Yesterday’s wind and high temperature of 55 was downright cold after Tuesday’s high of 77. It got even colder last night when it went into the mid-teens.
Tuesday night when I was out I noticed that the moon looked strange and eerie. It had an orange/brown glow that reminded me of a harvest moon. My guess is that it was the volcanic ash in the atmosphere giving it a little tint. It was one of about 10 times Tuesday that I cursed myself for not bringing along the camera.
The weather for the weekend is a coin toss. It might rain or might not. There is a decent sized rainstorm coming to the state. The question is if our invisible force field will leave us watching the rain from 20-30 miles away, or if it will actually break through and sprinkle on us a little. The forecast models have been flip flopping about it all week, and offer little meaningful guidance.
With a 50/50 on the models, I am going to go with a dry forecast based on our recent weather patterns. I am guessing that some rain will make it to about Hwy 64, with a slight chance of a little rain breaking through Saturday night or Sunday. If it does, it won’t likely be much. Look for highs in the upper 50s to low 60s with a little wind Saturday (E 10-15mph) and lows in the upper 30s or low 40s.
Spring is continuing to spring early. Now many trees and brushy plants are starting to show early green leaves. The cherry trees are starting to bloom, and I have several that are well flowered already.
They had a bit on the noon news that Door County has some worried cherry growers. A few years ago the blooms came early like this year, and a subsequent cold wave froze the blossoms. It wiped out almost the entire cherry crop. Last night probably wasn’t good.
Tuesday was a nice day so I took advantage of it and went and made a load of firewood. It was actually hot when some of the hard work came, and I found myself sweating a little. That seems unusual for the third week in April.
The gnats came out Tuesday afternoon and were just getting a little pesky when the day started cooling off. The bug of the day was the wood tick. Chris came along on the firewood run, but mostly stayed by the truck helping load what I had cut. She ended up with two wood ticks, my count was 9.
One thing that I couldn’t get over was how dry the woods was. The grass and leaves were crunchy underfoot they were so dry. I was very watchful of where my chainsaw muffler was pointing, my smoking, and the hot exhaust on the truck not contacting any dry plants. It was a real tinder box.
Fire danger is either very high or extreme right now. Depending on the wind, temperature and relative humidity, I would not be surprised to see extreme fire danger warnings or even red flag warnings posted. It is very dry, and it only takes a minor spark to get a wildfire going. Be very careful with your fire, cigs, and even where you park the car.
When fire danger is high, usually the rivers aren’t. All three whitewater rivers within an hour of here are running very low. So far it looks like the Wolf River has it the worst, it is running almost 20cfs lower than it has on this day in the last 43 years of watching.
Thankfully we have the Menominee River to raft on. The bigger dam controlled river has mandated minimum flows to keep the river ecosystem healthy, and that helps us by keeping the rafting fun no matter what. That is the recommendation this weekend for whitewater. You can run the Pesh, but it will be on the low side.
Kosir’s started running trips on the Menominee River last weekend. Usually they don’t start the Menom until Memorial Day because it gets so huge in spring. The Pesh is low and the Menom is low enough to run, so why not? It is great having options.
I do not have any events listed for the weekend. There is a band coming to Curve Inn May 1, the Hammer Down Band. Later in May the events start picking up.
One last item, an OT (off topic).. NASA has a new instrument up in the heavans called the SDO or Solar Dynamics Observatory. It has resolution x3 that of Hi def TV, and it has started sending back some pretty neat images. Here is a link to one that I think is the best so far. It is a 6MB Qucktime movie of a solar coronal mass ejection or CME. Cool stuff.
That is about it for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB
The drought just seems to get worse every year for the past 6 years. I think the Pesh is doing worse than the Wolf, since the Pesh is down 120 cfs and the Wolf is down 20 cfs.
I have a cabin in the Summit Lake area that I have enjoyed for the past 23 years. The last few years we have hardly used it because the rivers and lakes are drying up. The drought must be having a terrible impact on the local economies!
I sure looking forward to the day when water returns. That’s the main reason to come north with family and friends.