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Thursday April 7th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

We have a beautiful day going outside, easily the nicest of 2011 so far. There isn’t much for wind, the sun is out, and it is almost 60. There is a little melting going on, and places that had a head start are firming up the ground. After a couple of weeks of colder than normal temperatures, it finally feels like spring.

After pulling long hours on the computers the last few days it felt good to escape the house and get a little sun. It was only steps outside that I spotted the first flutterby of the year, and even got a picture. Even my elderly 17 year old cat went outside, and she hates the cold.

Here are a few pictures..

If I didn’t have so much on my plate this would be one of those days where I’d like to find a cooler and a grill and a few friends to goof off with.

This weekend looks like a GO for whitewater rafting at Kosir’s. Zac and Jason have been scouting the river all week and have been cutting obstacle trees. It will be close but it looks like it will be open enough to go for it. People running this weekend will get to paddle past huge ice islands of 3-5′ thick slabs of ice. I’ve had the chance to do that before, and it is pretty cool and otherworldly. Check out the pictures from the Kosir’s FaceBook page..

The river looks a lot different up by the rapids than it did down by the bridge this afternoon..

We missed out on both chances for rain this week, so the river won’t be as big as it could have been. Right now it is running at about +5 @ 467cfs.  With yesterday and  today’s melting we should be adding a few inches. I was looking for 10-12 in my last update. Chicago the Guide said +9 for his prediction today, and I think that it is a pretty good one. We should be within an inch or two on either side of that.

Friday and Saturday look like they will be partly sunny and in the upper 50s. That is some nice weather for opening weekend. Saturday night into Sunday morning we are expecting some rain, but there is a chance of getting most of Sunday in before the next wave of rain hits.

I have been pulling some long hours getting equipment ready for the weekend’s rafting photos and videos. I have a couple of computers that I am running a Linux operating system on, and I gotta say I really like it. The box that I am using now is running a PClinuxOS with the E-17 desktop. It is fast and stable, and it looks good doing it. There are still a few bugs to work out like where my photo enhancement program is in French, but that is pretty minor.

The XP based movie computer on the other hand is being a pain. It works, but it needs to be faster. I am grumbling about my SCSI 320 stuff because I really want one of these.

Well I have wandered off topic again, so it must be time to go. Have a good one and thank you for visiting!

/RJB

Tuesday April 5, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

The storm was about as expected. It started with 2-3″ of snow and then it got warmer and turned to rain and drizzle. That dropped the snow down to almost nothing by Monday afternoon. Monday was breezy and there were a few flurries. Athelstane Weather showed 0.31″ and the Rhinelander NWS put it at 0.28″. My wild guess number would have been 0.5-0.75 based on how sloppy the snow was.

A lot of people are excited about whitewater rafting with Kosir’s opening this weekend. Normally we start rafting the first weekend in April, but the thaw is running late and the river was still iced up. Now the question is, will it break in time for this weekend, and if it does, how high will it be?

If it rose at the rate that it rose Monday, it would be about +9″ and about 600cfs for Saturday. We are not expecting a lot of rain this week, but we will have some, and days in the upper 40s and into the 50s.

With some extra melting my guess is that it will be more in the 700-900cfs range, roughly +10 to +14. If the rain from Tuesday night or Thursday night/Friday surprises us or we see some warm days it could be more.

The next question is, will it be enough to flush out any ice blocking the way? There is a ways to go, but it could happen. The river was up 10″ higher 9 days ago, then it fell to about zero because of the thaw, now it is on it’s way back up to (by my estimation) +10 or 12. The lifting and dropping of the ice will help to break it up.

Will it be enough? As Mark commented, there is still some pretty solid ice in the calm stretches and above the rapids. My best guess is that it will open enough, and that people will get to see some great ice formations along the trips.

The GFS forecast model holds big things in store for us a little farther down the road. Starting about Sunday afternoon it is showing two big storms coming early next week one after the other. That should set us up with big water for weekend number 3, and there is warm weather and another big storm on tap for about the 20th too. It looks like we will have a late start but a great month for spring rafting.

The owl that was in the pictures Sunday was a barred owl, so named for the horizontal black stripe (or bar) on it’s tail. Apparently right about now is their courting season, and that would explain repeated daytime sightings. According to the EEK site, they grow to be 21″ tall with a 4′ wingspan. Cool stuff.

Driveway season is in full swing. The storm didn’t help matters any either. There are a lot of places around here that are deep mud. Gravel driveways are bad enough, backing the truck up to the work shed or wood yard would leave bug ruts.

Beyond that I don’t have a lot to offer today. I have been mostly inside working on the photo and video computers in anticipation of the rafting season.  I have three that I run on Linux and two that I run on Windows XP. I have been trying out various Linux distributions. I have also been fixing and building computers and doing wireless network stuff for people. I will tell you all about it in an upcoming page.

IN the meantime have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Sunday April 3rd, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

The morning brought about 2.5″ of snow. Due to the temperatures being fairly warm, it stuck to the trees making it pretty.

While I was getting ready to snap a picture of the wintry scene, Chris spotted an owl in a tree over the wood shed. I snapped the first one through the window, and managed to open it for the second one. He didn’t stay long after that.

I saw him Friday too, but only as he flew away when I opened the door to go outside.

The snow was the first wave of the storm. Farther south they had severe thunderstorm warnings around Green Lake County, where a cell of storms was bringing high winds, lightning and heavy rain. That initial wave has passed, and now we are expecting the bulk of the storm to be rain. There is a good chance that the very end of it might bring some minor snow accumulations.

After the storm clears out about Tuesday we are expecting a warmer week. High temperatures should be in the mid-40s working their way up to the 50s for late week and the weekend. There is a pretty decent storm on tap for about Friday, but the current GFS shows us between storms for Saturday. Saturday night brings some rain, but it is shown clearing out Sunday morning.

We did not kick off the whitewater rafting season at Kosir’s yesterday as hoped. The cold week kept the river frozen up as well as all of the wetlands that feed it.

The river has cleared out a lot right by Kosir’s and there are big ice chunks floating down it. Some of that came when the river fell sharply as a result of the cold weather. The ice was unsupported and broke down a little.

The river is still very frozen up in spots. We should see some progress on that with the warmer temperatures and rain this week. Will it be enough to get us out there for some rafting next weekend? Probably, but we will have to wait and see. You can monitor the progress here and on the Kosir’s web site, and the guys have some recent pictures on the Kosir’s Facebook page. I do expect a lot of changes to the Peshtigo River this week.

The driveway was pretty muddy yesterday, with some pretty deep stuff in the sheltered areas. The snow has melted off leaving water and ground soggy with melting frost. Some sunny areas are getting firmer, the shaded areas were the deep ones.

That is about it for today, have a good Sunday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday April 1, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

We had a colder than normal week this week. It took until Thursday to get the melting back in force. It was being held back by cold overnight temperatures, a few clouds, and days in the high 30s and low 40s.

As of Tuesday the snowmobile trails still looked great from the big storm. There was even full coverage on the railroad grade in Lakewood and Townsend and only one minor spot on the golf course was burned through. The trails in the forest looked great. Too bad that the ground had thawed under the snow and kept the trails closed.

There was a little melting daily, but it took until Thursday for the sun and warmth to start winning. There were streams of melt water running down the driveway yesterday, and the usual spots were deep with mud.

Thanks to the much colder than normal temps and snow cover it does not look like we will be rafting this weekend. That might change, but I doubt it. Not only is there a lot of ice to melt in the slow spots, the river level is way down as the areas that feed it froze back up. The Peshtigo was running about +9 a week ago and is about zero now. In the case of the Wolf that same period brought a drop of 18″.

Not only is it still too frozen up, the water is low now. That is disappointing on one level and better on another. It would be great to raft this weekend, but it doesn’t always happen. I like that all of that water and snow is still stored up waiting for a couple of warm days and some rain to really set it off. The longer that we wait, the better the prospects are for a big push of water, and for good water levels for April in general.

We have a small storm coming our way for today and tonight. The models and animations showed it to be pretty weak, but there will be a chance of some rain or snow as it passes. It could linger into Saturday with some scattered stuff. We are looking at upper 30s or low 40s Friday through Sunday with low temps in the upper 20s.

The one that has been holding my attention is the storm for about Sunday-Tuesday. It looks like a big one, and the models are struggling with it. It looks like there will be a sharp temperature gradient, and pretty good upper level moisture support. On the far ends it could be a 6-9 snow or a 0.5-1″ rain.

Earlier model runs have shown it for a foot plus of snow for the folks around here and a lot of rain for our friends to the south. Right now the GFS is showing it starting and ending as snow with rain in between.

I think that the North American Model(NAM) has a better handle on it, showing us as mostly snow and probably on the high end of 6-9″ of it. Based on the setup, I think it might be showing less moisture than there will be to work with, but that is just my guess.

This one will bear watching as it gets closer in the time frame. There is already a hazardous weather outlook from the NWS in some areas, and I would expect to see more watches and notifications if it unfolds anything close to my vision of it.

Behind the storm the GFS is showing a brief cold blast and then a warming late next week. There is another storm for later next weekend(April 9 & 10) that looks like another good one. Late in the model about the 15th-17th, the GFS is showing would should be our first 65-70 degree days in advance of what looks like another big storm.

W have an event for this weekend and it is a good one. It is sort of mini-golf meets the pub crawl. Each stop has a home made mini-golf hole, and you go from place to place to play the round.

April 1-2 Twin Bridge/Parkway Area 2nd Annual Indoor Mini-Golf Tournament

Check for details by clicking the link above. – Participants include:
Caldron Falls Bar, Curve Inn, Dock Side, Fishers Camp, Parkway Inn,
Peshtigo River Resort, Pine Acres, Thornton’s, Thunder Mt. Valley Inn, Twin Bridge Resort

That pretty much wraps it up for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB