Wednesday August 3rd, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

It was a weekend full of surprises. Saturday afternoon was supposed to be sunny and hot. It was, but about 3pm a big storm came through. That was not in the plan at all.

The storm featured some very strong wind gusts on the leading edge. Some peak gust measurements were in the 60mph range. There were a lot of small branches down and a few trees and bigger limbs too. It knocked out power for a lot of people in the northern half of the state, including here for 6 hours Sunday while they did repairs.

About 3pm Saturday the sky got really dark and I headed in to check  the radar. There was a fairly intense leading line and then more moderate rain behind it. The intense stuff blew through quickly, with the line moving east at 50mph. The rest of the rain took about 2 hours to clear out.

In front of the line of storms we had a hot day that got close to 90. Behind the storm the local weather stations were reporting temperatures of about 66, a solid 20 degree temperature drop. A hot day that found me in the river twice ended in jeans.  It also ended up being a pleasant night when we were down at Rustic Fest for some music.

The Saturday storm came as a surprise. When I did my weather research Friday, it showed us clear and under high pressure. It was a pretty big miss. Big H said that the Accuweather gadget on the left side of the page actually called it, including a 90% chance.

As far as damage- there was some but it was scattered. There were branches down and the occasional tree. I heard that the Wheeler Lake area had some trees down, and there are probably other localized areas with some damage. Most of what I saw was dead fall, with the occasional live oak or maple branch. The strong winds were pretty brief or it could have been worse.

We were expecting the storms Sunday afternoon, not Saturday. They never did return Sunday, and Sunday and Monday were nice days. Monday night and Tuesday brought more rain and some thunderstorms.  Those were a little milder and we saw about 3/4″ of rain. Areas to our northwest saw more, and areas northwest of about Rhinelander saw as much as 4″ of rain.

That rain will boost the Peshtigo River for rafting this weekend and put it well above normal.  Right now my guess is in the +4-6 range, with a chance of +8. The watershed saw a nice drink of rain.

The weather ahead this week looks clear at the moment until the weekend. That is a change from yesterday when the forecast held the possibility of rain Thursday or Friday. The current version has a chance of rain about Saturday night as a small system makes a quick pass through the region. The HPC has us bordering the 0.1-0.25″ to 0.25-0.5″ ranges for rainfall forecasts. Keep an eye on the timing this one, it could change.

We have some events this weekend. The annual Tug of War across the river between the Peshtigo River Resort and Dockside is this Saturday. Either place will be having a lot of fun with it.

Here is Chris’s listing..

That is a lot of events!

Summer is getting short with only 4 weekends left before Labor Day. Don’t wait too long to enjoy it!

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB