NorthernDestinations.com

Thursday 11-2-2023

Greetings and welcome!

I warned you guys about early freezing temperatures last week. Hopefully people took action because it froze and it froze hard. Most of the ponds and swamps have ice on them going all of the way across.

So far we have had a couple of nights that got as cold as 16F and a couple that were in the low 20s. Daytime temperatures only got up into the low or mid-30s, no help there.

Whatever the case, we froze hard. My little fishing boat had some leaves clog the drain. The heavy rains from the week before filled it halfway up. I discovered that yesterday. Too late, it is a big block of ice that will take some very warm days to melt.

Most years I don’t worry about winterizing my well house and plumbing until about Thanksgiving. Last weekend it was an emergency deal where I needed to do it by dark on Saturday night or else.

We also had an Alberta Clipper come through with some snow on Monday and Tuesday. The most that we got in Silver cliff was some splotchy white grass. I also had a light layer on the deck and on frozen gravel areas.

The storm came through north central WI and went diagonally southeast, for the most part missing us. Some people near Eagle River and west of Oshkosh saw totals as much a 4-5”.

So what’s the deal with the big set of storms and the big freeze? Blame El Nino. We have a strong one coming up this winter and it has already started to affect our weather. I am expecting cold weather in the short term and then warmer than normal weather just about the time that we think that we have a great start on the snowmobile season.

On a smaller scale we had no less than three big rain storms last week, all out of the southwest. According to my boat we had 6”+ of rain.

As is typical with big winter storms like that a big push of Canadian air came out of the northwest behind the storm. Last weekend’s big freeze was the result of that, and the snow came from a clipper system that followed with a reinforcing shot of cold air.

It will get better for the weekend. We will trade in our 20 degree below normal temperatures for a more normal 50ish high temperature. I’d welcome that.

That’s news for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 10-26-2023

Freeze Warning!

Greetings and welcome!

I haven’t had time in the past few weeks to update regularly. Today is important though.

We had a major series of rainstorms this week that looked a lot like winter storms coming out of the southwest. We aren’t expecting snow here until Sunday.

Anyway, like happens behind big storms is a huge push of cold Canadian air. Sunday night and Monday the forecast is for temperatures that could freeze plumbing. From the NWS website..

Sunday Night

Partly cloudy, with a low around 21.

Monday

Sunny, with a high near 35.

Monday Night

Partly cloudy, with a low around 21.

Tuesday

Partly sunny, with a high near 34.

Tuesday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 21.

Wednesday

Mostly sunny, with a high near 37.

Friday October 12, 2023

Greetings and welcome!

The fall colors are now firmly in the late season phase. The next player in the show is some sort of popple/aspen/cottonwood. A lot of them are the first little trees that regenerate after a disturbance. Sorry, I haven’t pinned down what they are, but there are a lot of them.

We have had a couple of frosty mornings this week. Bugs were pretty scarce before but should be even more rare after the frosts. Temps got down into the upper 20s so it wasn’t enough to endanger plumbing.

We have some nasty weather ahead. As I type this at 11:30 Thursday night the rain is only about an hour away. When it comes there is a lot of it expected. The places downstate that are expected to get the brunt of it could see 1-3″ of rain by Saturday afternoon. Around here the current guess is 1-1.5″.

In addition to the rain the storm is expected to bring some gusty winds. The hazardous weather outlook suggested that 30-40mph gusts were likely.

So tomorrow might not be a nice day with heavy rain and 30-40mph winds. Got it. Hopefully the rain clears out and leaves us a decent Saturday, but the winds are expected to last into the weekend.

A passing thought is that I’m happy that it isn’t winter with this big storm coming.

I have two events for this weekend. The first is a brat fry and raffles with the Near North Snowmobile ATV Club in Athelstane. That is at the Firelane Bar Saturday.

The other one is the Crooked Lake Lions Club Oktoberfest celebration Saturday. Here is a link.

The Iron Snowshoe snowmobile club is starting to work on trails. Sunday and Monday are days that they will send crews out. If you’d like to volunteer there are three areas to work in. Up by Silver Cliff call Al at Jungle Jim’s. In the High Falls area contact Leon Popp at Popp’s Resort. In Crooked Lake contact Norb at Trailside. They have a huge trail system so help is appreciated.

That is about it for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 10-6-2023

Greetings and welcome!

We had a much warmer than normal week this week. Our normal high temp is almost 60 and we were almost up to 80. Thursday and Friday came with some wind and rain and the warm temperatures are now past us.

That wind and rain did not do our fall colors any favors. The wind would gust up to 20+ and the woods would turn into a blizzard of falling leaves.

There is still some color out there but the really nice early stuff is now long gone. There will still be mid and late season color, but there will be a lot of bare trees from the very early stuff too.

Because we have so many tree species that show colors at different times I don’t really think that we have a true ‘Peak Color’. There is more of an early peak, a mid-season peak, and a late season peak. We finished the early season this week. Usually it doesn’t take the mid-season peak long to follow.

I absolutely love living here, and I just figured out that I have spent 39% of my life here so far. One thing that I really hate about it is the short days in winter. It just isn’t natural for the sun to rise after 7:30am and set as early as 4:09pm.

October is a big month for change in that direction. We lose about 3 minutes a day of sunlight. On the 1st we have 11:42 of daylight and on the 31st we have 10:11. That is a hour and a half less daylight.

At the same time the average temperatures drop a lot at the beginning of the month our normal high/low temperatures are 60/41 and November 1st they are 46/31.

We are in a strong El Nino, so it could be a warm fall, but you never know. At some point I will be talking about that ElNino on the Big Snow Page.

Clearly October is a big transitional month for us.

At the same time skywatchers should find October fascinating.We have an eclipse, a metor shower and all sorts of stuff. Here is a link that talks about it.

I was reading an article a few days ago that said that we should be seeing more northern lights over the next year or so. Solar cycle 24 was kind of a dud. We are coming into the peak of the new solar cycle 25, and it seems to be ramping up faster than some of the experts predicted. There is a very good chance that all of that means more northern lights diplays in the upcoming year or so.

Along that same line we have a small chance of seeing some northern lights Friday and Saturday nights. The event is described as a ‘glancing blow’ to the earth’s magnetic field, but there is a chance of a display.

This week we took advantage of the warm weather and did a last chance camping trip. It was a blast with the fall colors, the campfire, the little boat out on the lake, and the warm weather with almost no bugs at all.

Sadly the wind kicked up a lot and brought some rain Thursday and Friday that took about half of those leaves down. It was a huge change in 3-4 days.

I think that’s it for this morning. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

Ooops! I forgot events. Wausaukee is having a huge fall festival Saturday from 9-4. Here is a link.

The Pine Ridge Raceway is having a big event this weekend too. Sounds pretty cool. Here is a link.

RJB