Greetings and welcome!
Spring is about to spring in a big way!
But…. Like the guys on the TV news when I want to see the weather forecast, I am going to talk about something else first.
We had a big storm come through earlier in the week that brought some very high wind gusts. The wind started Wednesday afternoon with some frequent 30-40mph gusts. Thursday night and Friday (especially Thurs night) the wind was just howling. Some of the gusts would hit the house and make an ugly noise. I saw the NWS had gusts of 40 in Iron Mountain and I would guess that there were gusts well over 50mph. Today is much calmer. I don’t expect much of anything for storm damage. The easy stuff already got picked off by our numerous previous storms.
We had a rough winter. It would snow and then it would rain. Then it snowed, and it rained. As a result there is a lot of moisture trapped as ice under the snow. There were plenty of storms that brought nasty weather. There will be some fallen branch cleanup coming once people can get into their seasonal cabins.
I am sure that a lot of people want to know the condition of their gravel driveways. That varies by sun exposure, but mostly not good yet. I have sunny spots that are bare but soft from the frost coming out of the ground. There are shaded spots where there is still 12-16″ of a rock hard snow ice block. I was in Michigan a couple of days ago and the guy’s sunny plowed driveway (all sand) was firm enough to drive on in most places. It varies widely.
Here is a sight typical of spring in northern WI.. 8″ of fresh snow on top of 8″ of frost-out mud. This was one of my neighbors’ driveways on April 1st.
Things are going to change very dramatically next week. We have not had a 60 degree day yet. Most have been 50 or less. That is why shaded spots still hold so much snow.
Anyway, next week we have some unseasonably warm weather coming. We will start with 59 Sunday, 65 Monday, Tuesday 72, Wednesday 78, Thursday 77, and Friday 73. That should knock down the snow and help a lot with getting frost out of the ground.
Whitewater rafters & paddlers have a lot to look forward to this year. With the big brick of ice snow we should have good water well into May as sheltered areas slowly melt off.
Kosir’s Rafting usually starts spring rafting the first weekend in April. As is very common, the river wasn’t quite ready, so they pushed it back to next weekend. I am going to go out on a limb and predict very high and very pushy water for next weekend. With those 70 degree temps and overnight temperatures that are not below freezing there is going to be a LOT of melt water hitting the river by next weekend.
I have always said that a rising river is a pushy river and a lot of fun. This one will be rising in a big way. I’m too old to paddle anymore, but it is still exciting what is coming.
There are not a lot of signs of spring yet. There are buds on my maple trees and a few migratory water birds but that is about it. I expect that next week we will see the return of birds and bugs and chipmunks and in general a great awakening.
This is always a hard time of year. When it does get warm about 70% of the time we get a cold wind off of Lake Michigan that takes away some of the joy of working outside.
The other hard part is waiting of the great greening of the land. There are usually three weeks or so of brown everything after the weather warms up and before the world of green emerges. I usually expect things to start getting green about May 10, with what I call the Green Explosion coming between May 10 and Memorial Day weekend. It can come earlier or later, but that is a general rule that I came up with after living here the first 20 years or so.
I always look forward to the Green Explosion. Every day when I walk outside there is a new plant, flower, bug, or critter that wasn’t there yesterday. It is a magical time of year.
Well I am off to go and take my doggy for a walk. Like the rest of us she has cabin fever, and she didn’t get to go for a walk for a few days because of the high winds and nasty weather. She is either bouncing off of the walls or depressed and moping around. It’s my job as Doggy Daddy to go and fix that and I won’t mind a little fresh air and exercise.
Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB