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Thursday May 5th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

When we last visited it was snowing a little and struggling to get into the mid-40s. Things are looking up a little. Today we have a little bit of rain and temps in the mid-50s, but the rain is just about over.

The weekend looks nicer. Saturday should be cloudy and about 60, and Sunday looks sunny and in the low 60s. There will be rain in the region Saturday, but it looks like it will stay south of us. The wind does not look like a factor, the NWS prediction for Saturday is for 5-10mph winds. At that point we have a green light for a pretty decent weekend.

There is a lot going on this weekend. Sunday is Mother’s Day. Saturday is the opening of the fishing season, Friday the ATV trails open, and Saturday is the Kentucky Derby too. The whitewater rafting by Kosir’s will be in full swing with nice water levels too.

I got a press release from Marinette County this week that the ATV trails will reopen for the Spring/Summer season tomorrow, Friday May 6th. A lot of people are happy about that, and I expect to see a few 4 wheelers around this weekend. The ground will be a little soft and damp from today’s rain, so NO dust! Yee ha!

Saturday is the opening of fishing season, and it looks like the lakes and rivers are ready to go. The lakes that I have seen are free of ice, but might be a little cooler than normal with the cold Spring and late ice-out.

Saturday is also the running of the Kentucky Derby. If you are into that sort of thing, grab your fancy hats and a dish to pass (optional) and head over to Bear Point Yacht Club, where they will be having a party for the occasion.

Sunday is Mother’s Day. It is unusually timed this year. Mother’s Day is always the second Sunday in May, and since the first of the month was a Sunday, it is early this year. Don’t get caught by surprise fellas.

We are looking at a good weekend for whitewater rafting by Kosir’s this weekend. The river should be running good in the upper single digits. That lets the customer choose between a 2 person raft or one of the single person funyaks. On Sunday they have a special where Mom gets to go rafting FREE on Sunday with a paid trip. The weather is supposed to be very nice, so keep that in mind.

In spite of our cold start to the week this week the greening of the lands and forests has started. The grass in the ditches and fields is greening up nicely. The pussy willows are out, and a lot of trees are starting to bud or emerge with new leaves. FINALLY the drab season is coming to a close.

This weekend offers a treat in that the insect world is slow to emerge, but yet we will have T-shirt weather. I am not saying it will be bug free, but we do not have many of the normal nasties like mosquitoes or ticks out yet. Get it while you can. The Repel season is right around the corner.

One of the morning newscasts had a monthly outlook for May this morning. It looks like we are in for a cooler and wetter than normal month. Thank La Nina for that one.

Something that is totally speculative on my part since I haven’t researched it much is a bad outlook for the hurricane season. While the ocean around the ENSO regions are way below normal in temperature, the water in the Gulf of Mexico is above normal. As the cool weather from the La Nina mixes with warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico we get severe weather outbreaks like we had last week. That could also play poorly if we have an active hurricane season.

Well since I am down to speculation, it is probably time to run along. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday Ma(rch)y 3rd, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

It is a pretty nice March day outside today. Temps stayed in the upper 30s most of the day and could peak out in the mid-40s. We have had off and on very light snow flurries, and occasional gusts of wind.

It is not what you would expect for May 3rd. What should you expect? The normal high/low for Rhinelander is 61 and 36. Yesterday we missed the high by 27 degrees and the low by 6. Today it looks like we will be normal minus 16 and 10.

The LaNina cold Spring game is getting old. I burned a generous pile of wood this winter, more than I normally have put up. After that ran out I burned the popple piles, and policed the wood yard for another load. I went and cut a load Easter Sunday, and now that is almost gone.  I can easily go cut more, but that isn’t the point. It isn’t normal to go through this much or be burning all day maple and oak fires daily in early May.

The rest of the week and weekend look a little better. We are looking for highs around 60 right through the weekend, and lows in the 35-42 range. There is a minor chance of rain about Thursday, and the weekend storm looks like it is going south of us. Both storms show a QPF of 0.01-0.1″, pretty much a non-event.

This should be a big weekend around here. The fishing season opens Saturday, and the ATV trails open up Friday. Hooray!

Speaking of ATVs, there is a committee meeting in the Town of Stephenson tomorow night (Wed May 4th @ 6:30 @ the town hall) about how they manage ATV trails with the new people elected to the town board. ATV supporters will want to go there, people against them should go to the Thursday night meeting. (hehe)

Also large on the Stephenson Town Board’s docket is the DNR proposal for Boat Landing #9, the one with the beach by Thornton’s. The forest plan has provisions in it for the DNR to make the beach wider and roped off with bouys, move the parking lot back up the hill, for vault toilets, and for a large picnic area and shelter over by the bay on the left as you go in.

What they need from the Town is for them to deed the road over to the DNR so that they can put up a fee collection box. If the town says NO the landing stays like it is now. The beach, landing, and porto-lets would all be maintained by WPS per the dam license agreement, and it would be free.

It is no secret that I think that the DNR played pretty loose with the laws planning the forest. They planned it inappropriately as a type of property more suitable for a nature preserve and put ‘native community’ forests at key spots to keep the ATV trail out. Now they want to do a big development on wetlands next to one of their native communities. One or the other is inappropriate, and it is the forest plan.

Fishermen and women this weekend should find lakes free of ice. When I saw Townsend Flowage and Waubee Lake driving by last Friday they were both open. Over the weekend I saw Caldron Falls Flowage by the dam, and it was open and had swells from the wind. There might be secluded lakes or bays that still hold ice, but I didn’t see any in my travels.

We have had  colder than normal spring, so water temperatures are likely below normal. That should be catching up as we get some warm sunny days.

The whitewater rafting last weekend by Kosir’s was out of hand. The river was running big and people had a great time. I brought home some amazing pictures, and I will have a gallery of them on the Riversport Facebook page later.

The Peshtigo River is falling from last weekend’s levels but will still be great for this weekend. I am expecting it to flatten out somewhere around +9-12″ and be close to that range for the weekend. Based on what I see in the near watershed there is still standing water in low spots and swamps, so I expect that the river will stay high for a while.

That is about it from here. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday April 29, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

Just a couple of quick updates..

It looks like the Peshtigo River is going to peak out at +17. Not to worry, people over the weekend will have a great ride whitewater rafting. I don’t expect it to go down much. Based on the swamps that I saw yesterday we will have above normal water levels for a while.

Saturday looks decent with a windy day in the upper 50s. Late in the day and overnight we are expecting some rain. It is expected to clear up by Sunday, which is expected to again be windy, but only in the upper 40s.

We have an event for the weekend.. Saturday from 3pm on Fisher’s Camp is having a big party with a meat raffle, drink specials, and a VIP drawing for a pontoon boat rental. Sounds fun.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday April 28th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

We are having a rainy misty day today. There is some precip coming out of the north and the radar is showing it starting to come as snow. That doesn’t match up with what is on the ground, but I wouldn’t rule it out. This was a strong storm and there will probably be a little cold air mixing into the back of it.

The series of storm that hit this week devastated the southern United States with severe weather. There were literally hundreds of tornadoes and according to CNN, the death toll is about 250 at the moment.

We were fortunate to have mostly wind and rain out of it. The wind got pretty strong at some point.  There is a dead lead that came off of one of my maples and it landed probably 20′ from the tree. There is not a lot of widespread damage or anything like that, it was a dead branch. I am not mad that it landed in the wood yard, its ulitmate destination anyway.

One way that the storm hurt me was with my sinuses. The pressure changes brought excruciating pain Tuesday night, Wednesday wasn’t too bad, and today it is again painful. I have a hunch that the maple pollen being high has something to do with it, the little red flowers are coming out. Looking at my Facebook friends I am not the only one hurting.

The rain from Tuesday added up. Most of the USGS stations in the area are showing about an inch. Usually my rain bucket reads about double what they read. The NWS in Rhinelander reported 1.75 inches, breaking the record held since 1902.

The Peshtigo River did indeed come up. Right now it is at about +17″. I am expecting one more little bump out of it based on what the Wolf did, and it could hit +20 tomorrow. People coming to paddle the whitewater this weekend will have great water, and likely the highest water of the Spring.

People getting a head start on the weekend by coming Friday will be rewarded with high water and a great sunny day in the mid-60s. That is a rare combination. Use your sick days wisely as the old T-shirt goes.

Saturday looks like it will start out ok with temperatures heading for the mid-50s, but there is some wind and a line of rain coming in for later in the day and overnight Saturday night. The storm looks like it will bring 1/4-1/2″ of rain and clear out for Sunday. The NWS has Sunday for partly cloudy and in the upper 40s. Nights might be a little brisk with overnight lows in the mid to upper 30s.

Yesterday we had some excitement when Angela Kelly and Doug Higgins from Fox 11 WLUK in Green Bay came to Kosir’s to go rafting. They were taping a segment for the Get Away May contest where you can call in and win prizes. Those prizes include a family 4 pack for rafting and an overnight stay at Kosir’s and the Rapids Resort.

It was a little brisk yesterday morning when they headed out n the raft trip, but they were troopers and stuck it out in good spirits. The guys from Kosir’s gave them a full featured ride, slamming the side curler at First Drop and just burying the boat not once, but twice. They did great until they tried to surf the bottom wave, at which point our morning anchor team took a swim. After the trip they came back to the Rapids to gather up helmet cam footage and I gave them a disk with pictures from the trip. They were all very nice and it was great to meet them.

Spring is trying to spring, but the weather has been unusually cold this year. This week  some of the first leaves started emerging on  some of the soft hardwood trees. I am not sure if it is the cottonwood or poplar or what. I noticed it driving by and haven’t looked it up yet. The first couple of mosquitoes were spotted and swatted Monday, but it has only been those few. Apparently they aren’t big on today’s rainy 40 degree day. As I mentioned before the little red flowers on the maples are out too.

Based on our delayed start I expect Spring to come full force in the next few weeks. There should be a lot of fast changes once the weather gets a little nicer.

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

RJB