Greetings and welcome!
It has been a few weeks since I have updated. As busy as I was with work I decided to take a little hiatus before I start with the regular reports over on the Big Snow Page. I am pretty sure that it has been my longest break from blogging one page or the other in the almost 14 years that I have been at it. I started Silvercliff.com in December of 98, but had blogs for a few years before that about building computers and my day trading stocks. It was good to step away for a while.
We have had some wild weather while I have been gone. Since the 9th of October we have seen almost 4″ of rain. The storm on the 13th & 14th brought a couple of inches according to the rain gauge from the USGS by the Peshtigo River. I think that it might have been more. A bucket outside at work had 3+ inches in it.
Over the weekend the area whitewater rivers were in nice shape from the rain. There were quite a few kayakers that ran the Pesh and I am sure the other rivers too. The Peshtigo got up to about 600CFS, some pretty sweet whitewater. I like the wet Fall season, it will help to fill the watersheds and bodes well for a strong Spring whitewater season.
Last week we had temperatures in the mid 60s, which was very nice. Mid-week we had some heavy fog as the warm moist air got heavy. It was not bad near Crivitz, but out here in Silver Cliff we were socked in. It was a little different that it wasn’t necessarily the worst in low spots and by the river or flowage. It was more a hit and miss thing. Driving by where X crosses the High Falls Flowage I could just see the first island downstream, and not much upstream.A couple of miles west it wasn’t bad, then it was really thick.
On the way home Wednesday night there were good and bad spots. As I got closer to home it got really heavy, and at one point it was as close to zero visibility that I have seen in fog. There were places that the headlights could punch through 50-100′, but close to home it was probably 30 or less. It was rough going.
Thursday we had a cold front come through and put an end to it. The rain came hot n heavy and we probably saw over an inch of rain in an hour. I laid down for an hour or two before work and woke up to huge puddles. One of the neighbors said on FB that there was some thunder and lightning along with it.
That cold front brought a 20+ degree temperature drop. Last week’s high of 65 turned into this weekend’s high of 42. The nights have been cold with temps initially in the mid-20s. Saturday night/Sunday morning brought a low of 19, and we are at 22 as of 3am Sunday morning. I’d be very surprised if we didn’t have some ice forming on the edges of lakes and rivers.
The 19 degree low also had me worried about freezing pipes in unheated places. That is getting pretty close to time to worry. Usually I don’t set up the heater in the well house until the end of November. Usually before that the above freezing daytime temperatures give it enough heat to not freeze overnight.So far it has been ok between the sunny days and over 40 high temps. The normal high/low temperature for today is 49/29.
The forecast has us seeing a little bit of a warm up and through next weekend the NWS is showing us pretty close to normal. They don’t have any rain in the forecast, but the GFS is showing a possibility of the big east coast storm grazing us a little on about Wednesday, and a couple of chances for rain 7+ days out.
While I was away the CPC came out with their winter forecast. For us they are looking for a warmer and drier winter than average. I understand why they came to that conclusion, but I am going to have to disagree. It was looking like we were going to be in for a mild El Nino winter, with a chance of it strengthening. We have had two La Nina winters in a row and it would be unusual to see a third. The standard indicators were suggesting a mild El Nino or neutral year, but there wasn’t really a strong signal or direction beyond that.
In the past few weeks the slight warming in the ENSO areas has backed off a little, and the indicators are not as strong in the warming direction. It is starting to look like a neutral year. I am planning on going into this in depth on the Big Snow Page in my next update. I am not going to spill too much now, but I will say that I am going to be quite far from agreeing with the CPC forecast.
While I was away Fisher’s Camp changed hands. The last owner didn’t make it and Deb & Jeff reopened it in mid-October. They are nice folks and they had good food, so hopefully things will go well for them.
The people of the Town of Stephenson are having a citizen’s meeting on November 3rd. The way that the town is set up, at a citizen’s meeting the public can set the agenda and issue binding directives for the town board. The citizens have already spoken loud and clear about the proposed zoning ordnance and that issue is done.This meeting is about the town water patrol on High Falls Flowage. The way that I understand it some people feel that it is redundant with the DNR patrols and should be eliminated. There was also discussion on the way that the town board would be elected.
The citizen’s meeting is not bound by an agenda beyond what the citizens themselves bring to the floor and vote on. A popular vote is binding once an item is brought up for vote. It is democracy in its purest form, warts and all.
That is my update for today. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!
RJB