Tuesday May 4th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

The rain came mostly on Friday and wasn’t much anyway. The weekend turned out nice except for the wind. It was windy both days and some gusts had to go over 30. Thankfully it was also mostly sunny and in the 70s.

Here’s one for the guys in Burlington.. It was so windy Saturday that I saw tree stumps get uprooted and start rolling across the field..

Saturday we headed up to the Menominee River with Kosir’s to video a little rafting. The river was low, but that river is still wild at low levels. There were a few good wipe outs and some great runs, and one kayaker that took a little bit of an ugly swim. I will see about some video later. If you are not rafting up there you are missing out.

Sunday I was on a mission to goof off. We headed up to a couple of little lakes in the Nicolet to see how spring was progressing. The leaves are starting to come in on the trees, and most of the hardwoods are showing green. The trilliums and marsh marigolds are in bloom and very common. The grasses are greening up, as is the underbrush in the forest.

I told Chris that she should take a good look, it will be 6 months before you can see that far into the woods again. In a couple of weeks it will look very different as the underbrush comes in.

The lakes were coming right along. The water is obviously warming up and the first lilies are up. Levels on seepage lakes and rivers remain low. According to the DNR, the spawns are ahead of time and while bass and panfish aren’t up on the beds yet they are heading that way.

The drought continues. While Tennessee saw 12-14″ of rain out of the last storm and disastrous flooding, we saw less than 1/4″ Friday. I would love to see a storm stall over us right now, but maybe not to a disastrous extent like they saw there.

We should see an increasing trend in our precip. The El Nino is continuing to break down, and eventually the mid-latitude blocking high pressure that cursed our winter and spring should break down too.

I am not a big fan of the rubber band theory in weather, though I’d like to see it. The rubber band theory says that since we are behind in our rain, we should be due, and it will snap back with equal force in the other direction. It would probably be best if we didn’t make up for a 6 year drought in one week or month.

I see it more like weight loss. It took 5 years to add the extra pounds, it won’t be going away in a week or a month. A gradual change is the most likely outcome.

We do have some history of storms lining up over us and camping long enough to really add up. It happened a few years ago in July or August where the heavy thunderstorms came down a line like they were on a rail, and the Pesh watershed saw 9″+ of rain in one night. The same thing happened downstate not so long ago when there was so much flooding. It happens, but is of low probability.

There used to be a fairly regular pattern of a cut off low pressure area camping over us for a week or so in mid-May, and bringing 2-4″ of rain. That hasn’t happened in a few years, but hopefully will return.

The other likely source of bigger rains come to us when leftovers of a tropical storm or hurricane eventually finds it’s way up the Mississippi River Valley and into our neighborhood. Often they too get cut off and sit over us for a few days. Again it is a low probability event.

We have had abnormally low hurricane activity he past 4 years, and struck out again there. This year might be different, the ACE Index is expected to be a good bit higher than recent years, bringing increased probability of more hurricanes.

I do think that it will bounce back, it just most likely won’t be in one night, or week. I actually think that we are under way with the changes, and that they will increase with the El Nino break down and resultant AO changes.

In the short term, this week we have a couple of chances for rain. Tuesday night into Wednesday there should be some rain, followed by a cold front and temperature drop. That one is a more northern storm, and of moderate intensity.

There is a bigger southern storm expected for Thursday-Saturday morning. That shows some promise of actually measurable rainfall, the second time in a week! The latest GFS shows it clearing out just in time to leave us a cool but sunny weekend. We will want to watch the timing on that one as it gets closer, but it looks ideal now.

This is Mattie. He is two and ran away from the Wheeler Lake Area on 4/23. If you have seen him, use the little tab on the left to contact me and I will put you in touch with the right people. There is a reward offered.

A quick reminder as summer gets closer.. Kosir’s is again offering non-whitewater tubing on the Peshtigo River, and canoe or sit on top kayak rentals for exploring Caldron Falls Flowage. Of course they still raft on two rivers with whitewater, but the flat water options open opportunities for families that might have youngsters that are too young to paddle the rough stuff, and the masses that simply are more inclined to the relaxed pace.

Last year the flat water tubing and kayaks were a smash hit, and I think that it will continue to be very popular as people look for low cost outdoor fun  things to do on getaway weekends and vacations. Personally I think that it’s great. It is fun, cheap, outdoors, wet, and almost anyone can do it.

Speaking of fun cheap and anyone can do it, I hear that the Big Bear Outpost will be opening back up this coming weekend. They have all sorts of camping supplies and carry-outs as well as that super delicious hand dipped ice cream.  The owners’ son Matt will be running it, initially on weekends, and more once summer rolls around.

That is about it from here. Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB