Thursday June 24th, 2010
5pm update
Like Tuesday, today was a bit of an abnormal day. Again the usual stuff is late. Here we go..
The power came back on a little after 2pm here. The WPS crews have been hammering away, taking the number of customers out of power last night from over 18,000 down to about 2,000 today. There were a lot of trees and lines down in Crivitz.
I have not been west or south yet to see what Mountain/Lakewood/Townsend/Carter/Wabeno is about. They did have a lot of outages over there, with Lakewood zip electric customers 98% out last night. There were probably areas that way that saw heavy winds, I just haven’t been west yet.
Folks planning a whitewater twist to the weekend will be happy about the storm. The rain that fell locally brought the Peshtigo River up 3.5″ already, and it did rain in the far reaches of the watershed, so more is coming. Otter Creek and the Rat River were both swollen when I was that way today. Both the Peshtigo and Menominee will certainly be at a fun level for whitewater rafting this weekend. Get it while it is so nice!
The weather for the weekend has the skeptic in me raising an eyebrow. There is pretty good agreement among the models and forecasts that we will see 1.5-2″ of rain between Friday Morning and Sunday evening.
The strange part comes in that there is good agreement among them that the rain will come Friday night and Saturday night, and that Saturday will clear up mid-morning and give us a nice day. It can happen, today is spectacular. The NWS only has us for a 30% rain chance Saturday.
All expect it to rain pretty good Saturday night.
Sunday is a bone of contention. The NWS and NAM are looking for the front to clear out slower, leaving us a wet day. The GFS and HPC go the other way, clearing all of the rain out in the morning.
My best guess is that we will have nice days.
How about some events..
June 26 | Bear Point Yacht Club Hwy 180 – Wausaukee |
8th Annual Bear Point Fishing Tournament |
June 27 | Gross Family Farm N3905 9th Rd – Pound |
Marinette County Breakfast on the farmServing from 7:30 am to 12 noon – Celebrating June Dairy Month |
June 27 | McCauslin Brook Golf Course Lakewood |
4the Annual Charity Golf OutingRegister at 11am – Shot gun start at Noon – Raffles & Prizes – Dinner to follow |
Saturday July 3rd the Dark Horse Band featuring Tommy Greywolf (formerly fidlist for Brooks & Dunn) will be performing here at Rapid’s Resort. The show starts @ 9pm. These guys come very highly recommended by me. Catch this one if you like good country, and especially with Tommy G.
One last thing to share.. This wet pattern has been very good to our D-3 drought. By my numbers we have had 6-7″ of rain in June, and there should be an inch or two between now and Monday. It is just what the doctor ordered.
The Peshtigo and Menominee are actually running above their mean and median, something unfathomable a month ago when the Menom was setting 98 year record lows. Likewise wetlands are refilling, lakes are refilling, trout streams are running, and stuff can actually grow. Yee ha!
That is about it for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB
4:30 Update
I took a ride up to the Old J and Harper Rd neighborhood to see how they fared in the storm. There was virtually no indication of strong weather other than some erosion tracks on steep gravel road hills where the rain ran off fast. It looked like the town was already there to fill some spots. You folks on Nighthawk, Poacher’s, Fisherman’s, Hemlock, and that neighborhood are fine.
12:pm Update
I took a ride this morning to see what the scoop was. My path took me from C & F on C to Parkway, Parkway south to X, X to Newton Lake Rd, Newton Lake to A, A to Crivitz to W, W west to Caldron Falls Rd and back here.
From here to Parkway there was no obvious damage. South on Parkway was OK until just after the snowmobile trail crossing. On that corner there were a couple of trees down. Farther south past the Sportsman’s Club near the big curve there was a big tree down.
Heading south on Parkway there wasn’t much until down by Caldron Falls Bar. The 6th place north has a tree on the garage roof. It is the house north of the folks that found the small bunny last winter.
The rest of the way down to X was pretty normal. There was a tree branch on one of Popp’s Resort’s cabins, and they were making short work of it. From there we headed east to Newton Lake Road. About 2 miles south of The Woods restaurant the town guys were cleaning up a few small trees that fell onto the edge of the road. The rest of the ride to A was uneventful.
Heading south on A the houses east of Shaefer Road had some trees down. Farther east near Richlein Excavating there were a couple of bigger oaks down along the road and had one point probably blocked it.
Coming into Crivitz proper the tree damage was immediate. The Dudkiewitz farm lost a big spruce, and there were many trees down, some still on power lines, along the stretch between the town limit and the post office.
Heading out of Crivitz on W there was an occasional tree down here and there, mostly old ones that I wasn’t sure that the storm toppled. A couple of miles east of W and Parkway, about a mile east of Bushman Rd there was damage. There was intermitant damage from there to the other side of Parkway and W, again including trees on lines.
West of Parkway and W there was hit and miss trees down, but the definitely had some wind come through. There was a tree down by Racer’s and some down the next house west of the Wheel Inn. A little farther up was the worst damage that I saw where the Thunder Mountain Mini-Store had the roof ripped off and thrown onto the other building.
We then headed north on Caldron Falls Road. There were a few damaged trees here and there, along with leaf debris, but no damage to dwellings or widespread damage. There was no sign of damage north of the fire danger sign all of the way up Landing 11 Rd and back to Hwy C.
The power remains out here, though the grid ends at Parkway North, and Jungle Jim’s and the BP still have power. Across the street the Big Bear Outopst is on a different grid and does not. Crivitz still had trees across lines, so they might be a while before the re-energize that grid. The power outages were hit and miss. The gas station on X & Kottke did not have power, The Woods 2 miles east did.
Generally most of the area up here did not see damage. Some pockets did, like Crivitz, and the Thunder Lake Mini-Store. The vast majority did not. I have not been north yet, but friends up by Old J and Harper never lost power.
Some pictures to follow..
RJB
8:45am
Greetings and welcome!
I only have about 10 minutes of gas left in the generator so I have to be fast.
Crivitz did take some pretty good wind damage. It took an hour to get 141 opened and 2 to get both lanes open. The news showed downed trees and a few smooshed cars. Fox 11 WLUK had crews out there this morning. Hit their site for the vid and updates.
The power company has their work cut out for them. Most of the area that I cover 141 to 32 and 64 to 8 is still out of power. (Link below in last night’s report)
From what I could gather there was damage from east of the flowages SE toward Crivitz, mostly blown down trees and the stuff that they landed on. There is no visible damage here.
I saved my last quart of gas for morning, and it was a good call. Also a good call was that high E refrig that actually runs off of my 1400 watt Honda generator. That ran this morning again for an hour, you guys get a quick report, and I am off on a quest for more gas and to see what there is to see on the way. I will be back asap.
RJB