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Saturday April 16th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

That was an interesting way to start a storm. Last night just after dark the precip started. It was a mix of sleet and rain that added up to an icy layer on anything that was cold enough to hold it. Thankfully that didn’t include most roads, but the porch was 1/2″ thick with ice by the door where the wind blew it in.

The biggest first wave of the storm has passed, now we still have the precip right around the low pressure area to look forward to. Chances are that it will mostly be a mix or snow. I’m guessing that we will be out of it by mid afternoon.

I told Chris yesterday afternoon that the day in advance of the storm felt more like a snow storm than a rain storm. It was the warm sector of the storm, and still had a big chill to it. For a while I thought that my earlier prediction of 3-6 would come in.

There is still some storm ahead, and based on last night I’m not sure what to expect.

Last night brought weather advisories came on TV. There was a high wind advisory for southern Marinette Co, which starts a mile south of here. There were winter weather advisories for snow for Forest Co, which starts on the other side of McCaslin Mountain Campground 4-5 miles west of here. I was thinking that it’s a good thing that I moved where I did or the weather would be pretty nasty.

It looks like the river fell a few inches, and the rain being frozen on the ground didn’t help much. Folks are still in for a wild ride with the Peshtigo at about +21.

It looks like a very interesting day ahead, so I am off to dive into it. The first raft trip goes out at 9am, and I’ll be there with the cameras. Will it rain? Will it snow? Sleet? Nothing? Driving rain? Only time will tell.

Have a good Saturday and thank you for visiting!
RJB

Friday April 15th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

The weather outlook is a little better than yesterday’s. Right now my best guess is that the heavier rain will come overnight and mostly by early afternoon. After that there is still a chance of rain and the NWS has it changing to snow before it diminishes. They are looking at an inch of snow in the afternoon. It will still be windy and cold, so be ready for it.

Someone asked about ice on the flowages. The landing by X and Parkway still had ice except along the very edges yesterday. When I saw Waubee, Townsend Flowage, and lakes by Athelstane this week they all still had ice and were only melted by the very edge. They dropped levels on Caldron this year but High Falls looked normal.

The whitewater rafting at Kosir’s will be big this weekend. The river is off of it’s high of +25 by an inch or two, but if we get an inch of rain tonight it will be in fast rise mode and quickly bounce back and beyond. Weather and water wise Sunday looks like the better of the two days, but either day will bring a heck of a ride on the river.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday April 14th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

It is a lot colder today than it was yesterday or earlier in the week. The TV weather is showing a temperature drop of 15-25 degrees in the last 24 hours across that state. We are in the upper 40s right now, about as warm as it is expected to get over the next week or so.

The Peshtigo River is running big right now. The latest from Kosir’s and the USGS shows us at about a +25″ . The 12 year record for today is 1,740cfs, and we are running at 1,600. That is big water for sure. It is at about what looks like the peak on the graph. Based on the slope of it I wouldn’t expect it to come down much for the weekend. Right now my guess is about +20 for Saturday morning, maybe a little higher.

The weather might not be that nice this weekend, but the water levels for whitewater rafting are awesome. That is good, we are expecting a lot of people on the river this weekend, including the DPoD group, one of the crazier groups that visit Kosir’s. It should be a fun weekend on the river, but..

We have a weekend storm to watch. Right now I am seeing it coming as rain for late Friday night and early Saturday morning, changing to snow as the storm progresses east during the day Saturday. The QPF on the storm looks like between 1/2-3/4″. There is not much snow expected now, but there is a fair amount of cold air behind the storm, so I’d be ready for a surprise, like maybe as much as 3-6″ of snow Saturday.

Temperatures over the weekend look to be around 40 for Saturday and mid-40s for Sunday. Low temps should be in the upper 20s to around 30. Winds with the storm will be a factor Friday and Friday night at 15-25mph, but they are shown calming down a little for Saturday.

Sunday looks like the nice day with mostly sunny skies and mid-40s for temps.

The frogs in the pond have started up but they are having a rough week. They started with the vreep vreep last weekend a little, but then the pond froze over. They were out in force when it was warm out, only to get frozen over again. This morning the croakers are out, but the peepers remain quiet.

Yesterday I took a long cut on the way to some business around Athelstane and I got a look at a couple of county forest roads north of C. The roads are drying up pretty well. I only hit a few soft spots. There were a couple of loggers moving equipment around the sites, and it didn’t look too deep with mud. Some sheltered areas like the heavy cedar swamps still hold snow. Less sheltered areas are drying out pretty well.

Last week someone asked if ATV trails might open early. That is still very much up in the air. The drying came a long way last week, but there is still snow in places. Since it is a system wide opening decision, the least areas are the guide. I wouldn’t bet too heavy on an early start, especially looking at the temperatures on the long term outlook.

About the biggest sign of spring along my route was that some of the willow switches were starting to change color as the top growth prepared for another growing season. There were a few moths, and the standard deer and ravens.

Around the house the frost out is coming along. The wood yard is free of snow and firm enough to walk on without getting too muddy. It is almost time to get back to work out there. The driveway is good with the exception of a couple of sheltered soft spots.

There are usually not a lot of events this weekend, but there are a few..

Saturday 4/16-

Richard’s Supper Club Hwy 8 – Dunbar

Friends of the NRA Fundraiser Banquet
Starts at 5pm – Dinner at 7pm
Auction & Prize Drawings to follow

Sunday 4/17 Rene’s Dining Room by Popp’s Resort

11th Annual Iron Snowshoe Snowmobile Club Banquet
5pm cash bar – 7 pm Dinner
Gun Raffles, Prints, Cash Drawings

It has been unusually quiet around here the past couple of weeks. The roads and bars are empty of even the usual retirees. I am not sure if there was a rapture or if the mother ship came and took everyone home or what. It is usually quiet this time of year, but the past couple of weeks have been abnormally so. Support your favorite local businesses, they could use it right now.

That is about it for now. We will be watching the weather outlook for changes for the Friday/Saturday storm. I am not quite sold on the current model solutions.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday April 11th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

That was quite a weekend around Kosir’s Rafting and Rapids Resort. The Peshtigo River defied lower predictions and the Saturday noon whitewater rafting trip found a river that was at a +12. By Sunday it was + 16 and rising, and at the moment the 10pm Monday USGS gauge shows that it is at +24 and not done yet.

The people that came whitewater rafting had a blast. The river was big and wild and there was plenty of action. There were some great flips and swims at First Drop, and I was there with the pictures and video. (I will have some to share a little later. ) The river was running good and there were a lot of happy people around. I even met a group of site visitors on Sunday that came to give it a try. Nice to meet you guys!

The weather was pretty nice over the weekend. Saturday was warm and mostly sunny. Saturday night brought a couple of waves of thunderstorms, but it cleared out for Sunday. The rain brought fog Sunday morning, but the sun helped warm it up later. It wasn’t as nice as Saturday, but it was still a decent day for this time of year.

Later Sunday afternoon the rain redeveloped, and later on at night we saw all of the big storms that spawned tornadoes in seven or eight counties in Wisconsin.

One of those lines of severe storms went through Forest and Oneida Counties and hit the Peshtigo River Watershed. There were reports of a tornado and damage around Armstrong Creek and a few areas west and a little south of there.

The radar showed the storms dropping 2-3 of rain in a short time in the central and upper Peshtigo River watershed. It was a mean line of storms and they probably dropped a lot of rain.

When I was walking down to the river Saturday there was a lot of snow and ice in the woods. The thunderstorms Saturday night humbled a lot of that for Sunday, and brought a spike in the river that we are seeing now. We are not done yet though. There are still places in the woods with over a foot of snow.

Between the rain and T-storms Saturday night and Sunday night plus the melting of the snow from the warm days, the folks that want to raft the Peshtigo at high water have a lot to look forward to in the short term.  My guess at the moment is that we will go over +30 by Wednesday and be in the 20s for next weekend.

The weather for the week and weekend looks very interesting. Today and tomorrow look nice with pleasant days reaching about 60. Around Wednesday a cold front is expected that will bring light rain and a pretty significant drop in temperatures.

The GFS has switched gears in the latest model run. We were looking at a Friday storm that would clear out about noon Saturday. The latest has us in for, are you ready for this, a rain changing to snow storm. It looks like some rain Saturday morning, then as much as 3-6″ of snow. If it changes over sooner, it could be a lot more snow.

Since that model has made so many changes in the last 24 hours, I’d like to see a few consecutive runs of it settling on an scenario before I take it too seriously.

Here are a few rafting photos from the weekend..

Apparently the gallery that I had here used too many resources on the server so I have to prune it back. I will have to work out something different, either making the pictures smaller or using less of them. For those of you on Facebook, the full gallery is on my page there.

Have a good morning and thank you for visiting!

RJB