Greetings and welcome!
We have been seeing some tough weather for outside work this fall season. Our normal high temperature today is in the upper 40s, and we have been lucky to get out of the 30s. I have seen this cartoon before.. It stays 10-15 degrees below normal until normal is in the low 30s and then it catches up and we end up getting cheated out of some nice 45-50 degree days. I guess that is the plan for this year.
We have also had rain or snow every weekend since the beginning of October, and it looks like that trend will continue too. Add in daylight savings time where the sun sets at 4:15 and it is a challenge getting outside work done.
The recent cold weather has started making the first ice on lakes and marshes. The ice on a friend’s small backyard pond was 1/2″ thick yesterday, and lakes are making first ice too. That will get a lot thicker later this week. We are expecting an inch or so of snow tonight, followed by a high temp of 26 for Thursday, but temps will crater to the upper teens late in the day. Thursday night we are expecting temps to get down to 8 degrees, followed by a high of 25 Friday. The weekend should get into the mid-30s, but there is a snow chance for Saturday night into Sunday.
Protect your plumbing.. Normally I don’t have to start the heater in the pump house and plumbing heat tape until after Thanksgiving, but it looks like this year it will come early. It is ok if it gets into the upper teens overnight if the days on either side will be over 40. Thursday night’s forecast is for a low of 8 degrees surrounded by 25 degree days. That won’t cut it, so it is time to protect the plumbing.
This year the calendar has a lot of stuff earlier than normal. This year’s deer gun season starts a week from Saturday, on 11-18. That seems like it is a week early, but it is just the way that the calendar falls. If you recall the Silver Cliff Soup & Chili Fest seemed like it was a weekend early too.
One late addition.. watch for the deer out in the road. It is that time of year, and there are plenty of them by roadsides and in the road after sunset. Last night I didn’t even get two miles and I counted almost 10 deer out on the roads, a couple at a time.
The snow from last weekend’s 6″ snowfall mostly melted away Sunday and Monday. Not all of it is gone though, there are still patches in shaded spots and snow piles along roads are still there. The ground is frozen, so any snow that we get tonight and Saturday night should start accumulating.
I don’t see a lot of mercy in the long term forecast. It looks like winter is coming early this year.
Time to get back to work. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB