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Tuesday October 5th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

It is a spectacular fall day outside today.

We have now snapped out of our cold trend. Last weekend had low temps around freezing and highs well below normal. This morning’s scattered frost is about the end of that for a few days.

For the next 5 or 6 days the forecast is pretty much a cookie cutter forecast. Nice weather is expected, with highs around 70 and lows between 45 and 50. The next rain in the forecast shows up late Sunday or early Monday, leaving us with a great week AND weekend.

The fall colors are moving right along. Some of the early stuff is done, but there is still a lot of color. Some oaks are turning firey red. A lot of hardwoods are showing yellows and orange. My drive down Moonshine Hill Rd today was nice.

Here are some events for the weekend..

On my way back from Crivitz I saw that the corn maze on Nejedlo Rd is open on weekends now. Nejedlo Rd is just south of Wausaukee off of 141 to the west. The corn maze is about a mile west of 141 on the left(south) side of Nejedlo road.

Well, with a 70 degree day blooming in it’s full glory outside, I am not going to linger here. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday October 1, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

I ended up working past dark yesterday and never got to do fall color pictures.  It worked out better in that I travelled farther and know more, and the weather needs an update.

My travels today took me to Lakewood, Townsend and Carter, as well as down by High Falls Flowage. The colors varied a lot. The best spots were around here and south toward High Falls, a few patches on the way to Lakewood like around Wheeler Lake, and again at Townsend and Carter. It is a function of what kind of tree grows there. The real early maples are getting done, but the later ones are going good. Also showing off are the poplar, birch, and some cherry.

The weather changed a little in that it is raining outside now. There is only a 20% chance tonight, and no mention of it tomorrow. They did mention the winds at 10-15 gusting to 30 or so. It is not expected to frost tonight, but Saturday night could see 30 or so. Sunday still looks nice.

Not mentioned in the event list.. Prospect Lodge is having their Toys for Joys Ride Saturday.

While I was there, I caught a quick picture of Dockside’s mini-golf hole for the tournament tomorrow..

Fall Color Pictures..

Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Thursday September 30th, 2010-PT1

Greetings and welcome!

It is about 10 minutes before a very busy day comes at me. I won’t be around for the afternoon report, so the plan is a short version, followed up later with more details.

When I was out last night just after sunset, it looked like the fall colors were really going off. It was hard to tell for darkness, but I could make out a nice patchwork of colors. I have to guess that we will have prime colors for the weekend. I will be taking a camera along in my travels today, one of the reasons for a two part report.

The weather for the weekend looks Fall-like. Our weekend weather will be dominated by a cold high pressure system coming out of central Canada. It will be the first major push of sub-32º cold air at the upper levels of the atmosphere this fall.

The action starts about Friday with a cold front and a little rain possible Friday and Friday night. The rain chances stretch into Saturday on the NWS forecast, but I have some doubts.

As the cold side of a big high pressure system blows cold air over Lake Superior, the warm waters will cause some lake effect showers. The UP could see their first snow flakes this weekend and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them here too. That same lake effect is expected to bring our chance of scattered showers.

The reason that I have my doubts Saturday is that at the moment the winds don’t looks strong enough to push the rain this far south off of Superior. It happens, but usually in the context of 30mph winds that carry it a long way. The winds are predicted to be about half of that, at least right now. In that light, places that see lake effect snow, Like Vilas Co, are more likely to see rain.

My guess is that we will see a cool day with N or NW winds and plenty of clouds blowing by. SOme could bring a quick shower. I like unsettled as a description.

Night time temps are an interesting challenge to predict too. The upper atmosphere will be plenty cold enough to put us into the 30s, but the expected cloud cover could moderate temps a little.

We are expecting a frost or freeze, and the clouds will be the key to that. If it stays cloudy, my guess in that it will go into the low or mid-30s Friday and Saturday night. If the clouds part and we get a lot of radiational cooling, hello 20s.

I am looking for upper 40s Saturday with some wind, and as usual, Sunday looks nicer. Look for clear weather and low 50s.

We have some fun events for the weekend. The bars up and down Parkway are having a mini-golf tournament where each bar sets up their own unique home made mini-golf hole, and people go bar to bar to put-put golf. It was a lot of fun last year, and people were looking forward to it being held again. OK, here is round 2.

Thornton’s is also having a poker run hay ride that day. The hay wagon goes to the bars on the poker run. It was out of hand fun a couple of years ago when we went.

There is also a big Fall Festival in Wausaukee Saturday. They have a lot going on there. Here is the official list from Chris..

Whitewater folks- The rivers are STILL running very high and very much above normal. The Peshtigo is probably about at +18 right now and not falling too fast. It was +24 last Saturday. Normally it is -5 or -6 right now. It is very unusual to have this high of water and not have ice on the sides of the river. Get it now r get it in 7 months when it is ice water. Hmmm.

I was also made aware that the Rapids Resort has a special with big discount on their cabins between now & gun hunting. Give them a call.

Chris & I were planning on hitting some waterfalls this weekend. We will see how that works out, but it would be a good call.

Well I am 20 minutes late now so I have to run. I covered most of the important stuff, I will be back later with some fall color pictures.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting

RJB

Tuesday September 28th, 2010-Paddler’s Alert!

Greetings and Welcome!

It is very abnormal for me to start today’s report with whitewater related stuff, but it has been a very unusual year.

The rain last week really brought the area rivers up, and they are staying up. The Peshtigo River peaked at about 24″ last Saturday night, but has NOT fallen much. By my estimation, it is still running at +20 or +21. Not only did paddlers not have to raft in April  icewater to get the big flow, the river was beautiful with fall colors.

The normal level right now is about -5″. The +24 level was probably the highest water of 2010, the previous record was about +13″ in June when it rained for like a week straight. There is still time, but it seems unlikely that we will break last weekend’s level by Dec.

The rain was not lost on the other area rivers. The Menominee River was at about 7.5′ when the rain came. The next day it shot up to 10.75, over a 3′ rise in one day. Five days later it is still at 9′. That river is setting records at Niagara where the gauge is 17 years old. Upstream at the Twin Falls dam the gauge has been there since 1914, and the 1951 record still stands.

Chris and I are going to try to get out and see a few waterfalls late week to try to catch them while they are so full.

All of the area rivers are way above normal. As I told the river guys, the rivers will be staying up for a while. If the swamps and bogs are so full that it went that high, it will stay up for a while. It also bodes very well for big water in the spring runoff season.

The fall colors took a beating with the rain and wind last week, but were still nice for the weekend. Some of the nice early maples got knocked down, but there is another color wave right behind them. We should have good color again this weekend.

A look ahead at the weather proved interesting. We have a little light rain coming for Wednesday into Thursday, and after that the forecast is mostly clear.

There will be a little precip in the region for the weekend, but it looks light and scattered, and at the moment we are not in the path of it. It does look like a chilly weekend. Saturday looks like the upper 50s and upper 30s, with Saturday night in the low 30s and Sunday around 50. Based on upper air temps, there is a good chance that a few places in the UP and the northern Lower UP could see their first snowflakes of the year over the weekend. According to the GFS, we will see ours somewhere between the 10th and 15th of Oct.

We have some good events for this weekend. These really snuck up on me. The hayride was really fun when we went a few years ago. The indoor mini-golf is fun too, with each bar making their own creative version of a put put golf hole. The fall festival sounds great too.

Here are a few rafting pictures.. Click a picture to make it bigger, then hover your cursor over it to click to the next one.

Right now is a time that I call the fall squeeze. There are a million things to do that are time sensitive, like getting dirt moved, the roof patched, and firewood cut. Also on that list is stuff for getting snowmobiling web sites up and running for the year. That and a wave of new business has me really hopping. It is a great place to be, but a little challenging. I am off to dive into the challenge head first.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB