Monday June 7th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

The weekend turned out a little better than expected. It did rain Saturday, but until 4:30 it was just on the radar here. I was just wondering about it, and right at 4:30 I started to see the first drops.

It was a good rain for the area, and it hit the Peshtigo River watershed north of Highway 8 very nicely. The USGS gauge on the Menominee River showed 0.75″. The Peshtigo Gauge showed about 0.2″.

With Saturday’s rain the Pesh gauge shows about an inch for the past week, the Menom gauge shows about an inch and a half. I have not verified it this year yet, but the automated gauges are usually about half of what I measure in my bucket.

Sunday turned out better than expected with only isolated showers popping up.

This week we are looking at a chance of rain again Tuesday and Wednesday. Again there is a difference of opinion among the models and sources on how much and when it will be. Numbers like 0.25-0.5″ and 0.5-0.75″ come up on the GFS and NAM, the HPC is less impressed with us bordering between the 0.1-0.25″ and 0.25-0.5″ bands.

The weekend is also interesting. We will be on the northeast quadrant of a huge almost continent wide storm system with low pressure areas north and south. The GFS is showing a wave of rain Friday and then a little Sunday, followed by the brunt on the storm Sunday night-Tuesday.

It sounds nice, but I am not sure that it is that simple. With the big storm bearing down on us it should be warm and humid with the southwest flow in advance of the low. That would make it a little unsettled, introducing the possibility of occasional storms popping up. Predicting if, when and where is a tuffy.

I am also just plain skeptical that it will stay clear of our weekend. I don’t mean to be negative, but previous model runs have been showing it bringing a very wet weekend. Right now it is trending toward a better outlook. Both possibilities exist, let’s let it play out a day or three.

The wet weather recently has really helped the area. A friend fished a few lakes Sunday and said that levels came up a surprising amount. Both the Peshtigo and Menominee Rivers rose to more normal levels. If it rains Tuesday and again Friday it could hold promise of some fun whitewater on both rivers this weekend. I like the Pesh over 200cfs and we are at 181 with two chances of rain between now and the weekend.

With the promise of continued rains, the weekend after could be very interesting. The rivers are still low, but it is getting better fast. The rain has been good to us, and the GFS shows it coming stronger and faster over the next few weeks.

Here are some events for the weekend..

Well it is a nice day out, so I am off to tinker the old lawn mower back to life and cut some grass. The rain has it growing fast and thick along with everything else green.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB