Greetings and welcome!
What an incredible transformation that we have had in the last two days!! Yesterday we got up to 75, and today we got up to- get this… 86 degrees. Our typical high temperature for today is in the low to mid-50s.
The melting that has taken place is just incredible. When I put the snowmobiles into storage Monday the north side of the barn had about 18” of very dense snow and ice. Almost none of it remains. My brush pile was in a shady spot. I was hoping to burn it while there was snow on the ground. The problem is that the rest of the yard melted off from the sun and the brush pile still was under 18” of snow. Today it is on mostly bare ground.
I won’t be burning any brush for a while. Spring is a high fire danger time once the snow goes away. The old grass and brush from last year turns into this year’s tinder. It is also frequently windy on warm spring days. Today we have very high fire danger and farther south and west they have red flag warnings out, meaning no burning at all. That is our future too if we don’t get some rain. The danger goes down a lot once things green up and start to grow. Usually that happens about the beginning of May.
The rivers and creeks are very swollen with the sudden surge of melt water. People rafting at Kosir’s this weekend are in for an incredible ride. The river is rising fast and as of 6:30 tonight it is running +24”. That is an incredible ride for whitewater rafting. But wait.. The gauge is going straight up meaning that it won’t quit rising for a while. I fully expect the river to get into the mid-30s by the weekend, possibly higher.
I have watched this river for over 30 years. There are certain levels where it dramatically changes personalities as far as running the whitewater. At about 12” it is seriously fun. At 16 it starts getting snaky as waves get bigger and the rapids get less forgiving. At 24-26” the waves get taller and the holes deeper. That’s big water and clearly a fun ride. At 28” there is this magical thing that happens and the river gets just HUGE. I have pictures of 16 foot rafts with a dozen people in them totally disappearing in the rapids. It is really incredible. There is a reason that the Peshtigo River is world famous for whitewater, and over +28 is high on the list. This weekend it is going to be all of that and more. People running this weekend have a great trip to look forward to.
When I was traveling Tuesday (Hwy C to Wabeno, 32 to Lakewood, Hwy F back to Silver Cliff) All of the lakes were still frozen over. I don’t know if our 86 degree day changed that. Perch Lake near Wausaukee still held ice late Wednesday afternoon.
The warm weather has a lot of people thinking about golf. When I went past the course in Lakewood Tuesday it still held quite a bit of snow and there was some flooding. That one needs a little time before it is 100% ready. People on Facebook said that there were courses near Crivitz that were at least partially open.
One of my favorite things is exploring the area forest roads. When I went past a bunch of them on my Wabeno/Lakewood trip the forest roads were a mess. Shaded areas held snow. Areas with the frost coming out were very muddy. I won’t be cruising the back roads anytime soon.
I saw my first leaves today. It looked like some sort of cottonwood or poplar. I am not sure if they are first leaves or the beginning of catkins. That is all hard to establish going by at 60. At any rate our first green has emerged.
When I was out driving at sunset yesterday the deer were very plentiful up by the roads. I am sure that I saw at least 15 in a 10 mile journey. There is going to be a lot more of that in the days ahead. Early spring is bad for car/deer collisions because roadsides often have the first grass popping up. As more green plants emerge in the woods the danger is reduced somewhat. At any rate the next few weeks is going to be dangerous for deer up by the roads.
I haven’t been to the Silver Cliff house since the big thaw started (ugly driveway with the frost coming out). I would bet that if the ice is off of the pond we would have the first frogs starting up after today’s warm day. If they didn’t start up already they will tomorrow or the next day. We are expecting the abnormally warm weather to continue until Saturday.
Spring is a magical time around here. With this week’s abnormally high temperatures spring just got a really huge boost.
Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB