Greetings and welcome!
My travels today were interesting with the big rain storm. On my way back from Green Bay the rain got really heavy about where 141 goes back to two lanes between 64 & Crivitz.
There was a lot of rain down and big puddles were throwing me around. Anytime that there was a low spot in the road, it was full. A its worst 141 was like driving in wet snow, with the car pushing through the water filled lane ruts. Some of the more contoured side roads produced some big puddles. A couple caught me off guard and produced spray well over the truck. (yeeha!)
Skeptical or not, I was ready for this storm with the rain buckets. One was a big serving pan 3″ deep. It didn’t measure up, it overflowed. Checking the 5 gallon bucket I had exactly 4″ as of 7:15 Thursday night. There is more on the way, but the really big stuff is past.
Click the picture for a bigger view..
With 4″ of rain there were low spots flooding and some full ditches. There were some erosion tracks in gravel roads.
Driving over the Peshtigo River bridge it was obvious that the river was way up, and quickly heading for bank full stage. It would not surprise me at all to see that up to +12 and 800cfs by morning. There should be a lot of private boaters around this weekend.
They will be well rewarded not just with the highest water levels of 2010, but with some outstanding fall color. The early maples are in their glory in Silver Cliff right now. The really bright red ones are bright and full, the purple ones are prime, and here is plenty of bright yellow and orange.
The leaves varied a lot in my travels They were actually farther along in Green Bay than they were in Pound or Coleman. There was a noticeable increase in color heading west of A on C. As I progressed past the Silver Cliff line they were really nice, and again with the area around Parkway and C and west to F.
The early fall colors are here, and I like the early ones a lot. There is a tree down the road that is purple on the outsides of the leaves and still green inside. Those are prime early leaves.
The heavy rain today did take down some leaves, but they held up pretty good when I was out late afternoon. There will be good color for the weekend.
We have winds coming tomorrow behind the storm that could go 15-30, possibly up to 40mph in gusts. Because it is so early in the color change, hopefully the leaves will stick around. The color change has come on quickly this week.
Between the fall colors and the high rivers, this might be a great time to visit some of the Marinette County waterfalls. When the falls are full like this they are majestic and powerful. The fall color is just frosting on the cake. It is probably a once in a few decades opportunity to catch them with this much water in fall.
There isn’t much to report for wildlife. I spotted a few turkeys playing by the road along A south of C. The rest of the critters were smart enough to get out of the downpour.
Looking at this storm through the purely speculative lens of what if it were January.. This storm would probably have been a lot of rain for us. The low is expected to track over far NW WI, and the best snows come when it tracks between Chicago and Milwaukee. We would have been in the warm sector for most of the storm. It would not have brought a lot of snow, but a lot of rain, and maybe a really bad ice storm, depending on conditions. What if..
That is about it from here. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB