Greetings and welcome!
I think that our spring is broken…
We had one crazy week last week in weather. If you count the Saturday night/Easter Sunday snow, we had over 1.5 feet of snow last week. The sun ate it where it could reach, but a lot remains in shaded areas.
We also had a much colder than normal week last week. Our normal high/low temperature is about 45/30. Friday and Saturday night were the coldest. Friday night/Saturday morning we went down to a low of 8 degrees. By 10am when the first raft trip of the year would have gone out it was up to 14.
Saturday night Sunday morning was colder. The low locally was 4 degrees in Wabeno and 8 in Crivitz. Antigo, about an hour west, set a new record with -8. Green Bay missed the all time record for coldest temp in April by three degrees.
Kosir’s delayed opening weekend of whitewater rafting on the river last weekend for a variety of reasons, mostly safety. With the snow and much below normal cold weather I had concerns about the river refreezing overnight and potentially causing a trip cancellation due to safety issues. I am not even remotely in charge of that decision, but next weekend it is!
It is just a shame that the snow and cold didn’t come during the snowmobile season. Now it is just a nuisance. It was crazy moving 12-15″ of snow in unplowed areas and seeing south facing hillsides bare the next day from the warm April sun.
The cold weather is expected to continue this week. The warm days look like Wednesday and Thursday when we could get up to around 50 degrees. Between now and then we are in for high temps around 40.
There is another storm showing up in the forecast models for Friday-Saturday night. It is a long ways off, but it looks a lot like last week’s storms. At five days out it is hardly a sure thing but we should watch the forecast. Right now high temps look to be in the 35-40 degree range.
The recent cold has me wondering about May. Will the world turn green as is typical about the second week in May? Will the lakes melt off in time for fishing season to open? What about the ATV trails? How are the maple syrup folks faring-will they still be tapping in May?
You just never know around here. In two weeks we could be in the 70s with big thunderstorms, or just as easily digging out of another foot of snow.
One nice side effect of this crazy weather.. no bugs yet.
Have a good week and thank you for visiting!
RJB
For what it’s worth, i did a little research on the Midwest ski resorts…. Granite Peak (Wausau) and several in Da Yoop (Ski Brule, in Iron River, MI, is prolly the closest to Silver Cliff and and not far from the Menomonee River rafting section) plan to remain open on the weekends thru the end of the month, and possibly into May…. Looking at their websites, they’re reporting epic Spring Skiing conditions….
So, while much of the major snows came late this year, not all is lost…..there’s still some snow play to be had….. If i had gobs of free time (hard to come by these days), i prolly would head up to Ski Brule for a few days…… As a side note, i’ve sledded in April in Da Yoop (when i owned my own scooter), during one of those epic winters in the mid-90’s. And i gotta tell ya, late season riding is the BEST. So, it might be worthwhile to pull out the sleds one more time and head a coupla hours north…as long as you have a MI trail sticker;-)