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Fri 9/24/10 Paddler’s Alert-Area rivers go HUGE

Greetings and welcome!

We did not get a lot of extra rain in the rain bucket overnight. My official total is 4.25″.

Four inches of rain plus soggy ground has brought the rivers up even beyond my expectations. I predicted that the Peshtigo River woould be over +12″ this morning, and it was. It is still rising and is in the 16-18″ range as of 8am Friday, now breaking 1,000cfs.

I would not be surprised to see it in the 20″+ range for Saturday and Sunday. The water we are seeing now fell between about here and Goodman Park. The water from where the watershed reaches north of Hwy 8 and west almost to Crandon is not here yet.

The rain hit the Menominee River too, and near Piers gorge where they raft it is running at a huge 7,290. Usually they stop rafting it at about 5,000, it is just too big for commercial trips. Put it this way.. the Menom came up THREE FEET since about dinner yesterday.

According to the NWS forecast, we are in good shape for the weekend. Look for partly cloudy and about 60 Saturday and add a few degrees for Sunday. Look for lows at night around 40.

It is a very windy day outside today, but the skies are clearing. You almost have to expect that big wind when there is a 20 degree temperature difference on either side of the storm. It is expected to calm down for the weekend.

Because weather related updates pushed Tuesday’s report so far back, here is a copy n paste of this weekend’s events.

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

RJB

Thursday Night Update

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

Wednesday September 22nd, 2010-Special Weather Update

Greetings and welcome!

We have some weather to talk about. The storm for tonight and tomorrow looks like it will bring heavy rain to far northern WI and the UP.

How much? Opinions vary, but the range of 2-4+  inches has been shown consistently in the various models and forecasts.

The HPC QPF is between 2.5 and 3″, with the 3-4″ line pretty much cutting our area in half. Generally those guys aren’t too excitable, so it has my attention. The NAM model is showing a fair bit of rain too.

The GFS model, which sometimes get caught with convective feedback and overstates rainfall estimates, is the most reserved today. It is only showing us in the 1.5-2″ range.

The NWS is looking for 2-4″ of rain and has issued a flood watch.

The overall consensus is that it is going to rain a lot between tonight and Friday.

The area rivers are already running at record highs. The Peshtigo is running 489CFS, breaking the ’02 record of 376cfs. The Menominee River is running at 2,960cfs, breaking the ’97 record of 2,330cfs. Both rivers are on the way down at the moment, with the Pesh peaking at 700cfs last weekend, while the Menominee went just over 5,000cfs.

With the high rivers, soggy ground, and lots of rain on the way, the flood watch is appropriate. The Peshtigo is wild enough that it isn’t much of a threat. The Menominee River could be a different story. Their watershed looks to take the brunt of the storm, and the reservoirs are pretty full. Batten down the hatches Slug.

I guess a paddler’s alert is in order for the whitewater folks too. The rivers stand to get higher than they have been all year this weekend and into next week. If the rain comes as expected, the Pesh could easily exceed +12, and the Menominee well over 5,000cfs.

This is all based on a forecast, and those don’t always work out. Right now we have pretty good agreement from our guidance sources that it will rain a lot. I am a little skeptical of the high totals, just as I would be if this same storm were 3 months from now carrying 2-4 feet of snow. It does merit a heads up though.

At the moment there is pretty good agreement that the storm will time out well for the weekend, with the rain clearing out late Friday and the follow up storm not expected here until Sunday afternoon.

That is about it from here. I am off to enjoy our nice day, and maybe locate the old water wings.

Have a good Wednesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday September 25th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

It is one beautiful day in the north woods today. We are partly cloudy and about 75 with a little wind. There are a few gnats, but other than that it is about perfect out there.

Last night was on the warm side too. There was no fire in the woodburner, golly I’da ended up medium rare. I see a low of about 55, not too far off of the highs of the past week or so in the mid-50s and low 60s.

What is up is the big high pressure from the hurricane in the Atlantic is camping off of the SE coast of the US. The clockwise flow is sending a lot of warm air up from the south, along with some storms.

One storm was last night, but it didn’t last too long. It mostly made yesterday dreary and damp, followed by a line of overnight thunderstorms. We have another one, a pretty good one, coming late week. That should hit us between Wednesday night and Friday morning if things stay on time. The good news is that it should clear out in time to leave us a nice weekend.

At the moment the GFS and NAM forecast models have the weekend clear with the exception of a chance of rain late Sunday. The NWS version has a chance of rain Saturday, but they are struggling with a wide diversity of scenarios among the models. Until I see something more consistent develop between the models, I am sticking with nice weather influenced by high pressure behind the Thursday storm.

If in doubt, check the HPC. Ok, they throw a new twist into it. They have the late week storm lagging well into Friday, and the second storm a concern for next week. Again that leaves the weekend clear of rain, so it is on our side.

Be aware that both possibilities exist and check later forecasts. We kind of agree that there is a disturbance, it is the timing that is in question. We should get clues by the late week storm being early or late what to expect behind it for the weekend.

I am late today because I was on the road this morning. I did get a chance to check out some fall colors. When we took C to Wabeno we had a good show the early maples are starting to come in nicely, and some of the bright orange, purple, and yellows are starting to show. Some of the hillsides were getting that patchwork of color quite nicely.

As we headed down 32 going south, there was a considerable falloff in colors between Townsend and Carter. North of Carter should be great for the weekend and south of there will be starting up. Down by Mountain there are a few splashes, but not like farther north.

We have some good events this weekend.

We will be at a horse trail ride in Mountain on Saturday. If anyone is interested, hit the feedback tab and I will gladly fill you in.

Here are other events from Chris’ list.

Not much to do in fall around here, eh? There is more coming with bar hopping mini-golf where each bar sets up their own unique put put golf hole, a hay ride, and all sorts of stuff. We have a l0t of events in the fall.

The firewood mission is coming right along. The pile that I split last week stacked out to about 2 3/4 cords. Added into the 2 1/2 that I put up early summer, I am well on the way to the goal of 7 cords of oak, plus the piles of popple & basswood for early & late season quick fires. I will make the cold season now, but I like a little margin of error. The electric heat costs $1.08 an hour to run. Owie. Keep cutting!

Yesterday I established why I shouldn’t pile the wood in neat 1 cord stacks 8′ high. Jenga! LOL. I said a bad thing, but it was pretty funny. I knew what I was getting into.

It looks like my Thursday report will be a Friday report. Chris will be here, but I will be traveling on business.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB