Greetings and welcome!
We had a much warmer than normal week this week. Our normal high temp is almost 60 and we were almost up to 80. Thursday and Friday came with some wind and rain and the warm temperatures are now past us.
That wind and rain did not do our fall colors any favors. The wind would gust up to 20+ and the woods would turn into a blizzard of falling leaves.
There is still some color out there but the really nice early stuff is now long gone. There will still be mid and late season color, but there will be a lot of bare trees from the very early stuff too.
Because we have so many tree species that show colors at different times I don’t really think that we have a true ‘Peak Color’. There is more of an early peak, a mid-season peak, and a late season peak. We finished the early season this week. Usually it doesn’t take the mid-season peak long to follow.
I absolutely love living here, and I just figured out that I have spent 39% of my life here so far. One thing that I really hate about it is the short days in winter. It just isn’t natural for the sun to rise after 7:30am and set as early as 4:09pm.
October is a big month for change in that direction. We lose about 3 minutes a day of sunlight. On the 1st we have 11:42 of daylight and on the 31st we have 10:11. That is a hour and a half less daylight.
At the same time the average temperatures drop a lot at the beginning of the month our normal high/low temperatures are 60/41 and November 1st they are 46/31.
We are in a strong El Nino, so it could be a warm fall, but you never know. At some point I will be talking about that ElNino on the Big Snow Page.
Clearly October is a big transitional month for us.
At the same time skywatchers should find October fascinating.We have an eclipse, a metor shower and all sorts of stuff. Here is a link that talks about it.
I was reading an article a few days ago that said that we should be seeing more northern lights over the next year or so. Solar cycle 24 was kind of a dud. We are coming into the peak of the new solar cycle 25, and it seems to be ramping up faster than some of the experts predicted. There is a very good chance that all of that means more northern lights diplays in the upcoming year or so.
Along that same line we have a small chance of seeing some northern lights Friday and Saturday nights. The event is described as a ‘glancing blow’ to the earth’s magnetic field, but there is a chance of a display.
This week we took advantage of the warm weather and did a last chance camping trip. It was a blast with the fall colors, the campfire, the little boat out on the lake, and the warm weather with almost no bugs at all.
Sadly the wind kicked up a lot and brought some rain Thursday and Friday that took about half of those leaves down. It was a huge change in 3-4 days.
I think that’s it for this morning. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
Ooops! I forgot events. Wausaukee is having a huge fall festival Saturday from 9-4. Here is a link.
The Pine Ridge Raceway is having a big event this weekend too. Sounds pretty cool. Here is a link.
RJB