Greetings and welcome!
My apologies on not having an early week update. It was a bad week around here with the short week making it more concentrated. Like many of you I will be looking forward to putting that behind me and getting some weekend in.
The weekend weather looks interesting. I checked 4 sources and got 4 different ideas. We have a weak cold front expected to be over us today and as the heat an humidity build it could bring some showers and storms later in the day.
The NWS has the front moving north into the UP, but it could head south again tomorrow again bringing the chance of rain.
The North American Model (NAM) is showing a storm coming in from the west about Saturday night as a line of thunderstorms. It could bring some heavy rain if it actually unfolds that way.
The GFS is also showing a line of storms, but they are a little slower with it, bringing it through early Sunday morning.
The TV weather channel is the best looking one, with a chance of storms today and again Sunday afternoon or night.
It is a challenging weekend to forecast. The atmosphere will be hot and humid, there is cold air just to the north, and all it takes is a trigger to set off the instability. In our case the triggers are the warm/cold air boundary today, and a jet steak area of energy that is predicted to pass over Northern WI for anywhere from Saturday to Sunday night.
The atmosphere will have some energy available as we see hot and humid air building in as the weekend progresses. My best bet is that we will be ok Saturday until at least late afternoon, and the chance for rain goes up Sunday as that day progresses. With highs around 90 and plenty of humidity, I think that is the one to watch.
I always hated physics in college and tech school, but now watching the weather it is fascinating. It is amazing how much energy it takes to evaporate water, and it doesn’t give anything off. That energy is stored in a humid atmosphere in immense amounts, just waiting for a trigger.
One metric that I watch is CAPE, Conductive Available Potential Energy. To oversimplify it, it represents the potential of the atmosphere to produce rapidly building storms and severe weather.
In the case of the storm for this afternoon the CAPE is estimated at about 1,200 J/kg, and Sunday afternoon they are in the 1,500-2,000 J/kg range. That tells me that both will bring the chance of a thunderstorm, and Sunday’s 2,000 high end could mean some pretty good ones. When you get over about 2,500 watch out, that is a very unstable atmosphere.
So anyway bottom line on the weather- It looks like a hot July weekend. There is the best chance for showers or T-storms today and Sunday afternoon, but a minor chance all weekend.
We have some big events this weekend.
At the top of the list is the 3rd annual Northeast Poker Run and Super Dave Memorial Party. It is a big poker run that benefits the Crivitz Food Pantry. It involves 10 local bars and campgrounds. Super Dave was a great guy and bike mechanic that offered free road service to broken down bikers on the poker run. He passed away the day after the poker run a few years ago and is very much missed by a lot of people. Anyway, here is a poster.
Saturday is also the Athelstane Volunteer Fire Department Annual Parade & Picnic. The parade lines up at 10:30 am at town hall (On Hwy A just north of C) proceeding to Fireman’s Park. Activities include men, women and kids’ water fight competitions, games, grab bags, silent auction, Rafflemania and refreshments including home made french fries.
Music in the evening will be provided by Force of Habit.
It will be a hot weekend so a good one to get wet floating down the Menominee River on a Bear Point Yacht Club Float Trip Saturday. They get together in the morning and do shuttles and then the float trip starts at 11. They float down the river in anything from an inner tube to a pontoon boat and end at the Bear Point for more fun.
We will be at Kosir’s as always, and it should be a good weekend. We only had a little rain this week, but the rivers are doing ok. The Peshtigo is at about a +1, and 335cfs. It doesn’t seem to be going down any, so we should have an above normal weekend. The median flow for today over the last 12 years is 205cfs, and we are at 335.
With the hot weather expected it would be a good weekend to take to the river in a funyak or tube, or take a sit on top kayak out on the flowage. Kosir’s.
That is about it for me. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB