Update- I can’t believe that I missed this in my update, but I did. The Firelane Bar is having live music Friday night with Paul Hanna from Annex. The bar has been sold, and their last day is Sunday the 27th, and that will be the big going away and empty the bottle party starting at 2pm. Best wishes to Terry & Jabber, Snail & Michelle, Shelly, and the other Firelane crew.
Greetings and welcome!
Last weekend was pretty nice for weather. It was warm out with temps around 90 and a wind that made it a lot more comfortable. It was warm enough that I got my first dip in the river while I was there doing pictures, and it felt pretty good.
Sunday afternoon tthere were some big mean looking thunderstorms headed our way. The sky was dark and rumbling, and the TV had severe thunderstorm warnings for us and surrounding counties. As happens sometimes, it hit our area and evaporated. It didn’t rain at all by W & Parkway, there was a little at Parkway and X, and here in Silver Cliff, it didn’t get wet at all. For those of us that want rain it was discouraging, but it made for a better Sunday afternoon for outside play.
That storm came with a cold front, and I think that we had a night in the 40 degree range right after that. I have been seeing temps of about 60 in the house each morning, but held out on starting the wood burner until today. Yesterday was pretty comfortable outside, and I got a little yard work done. I might follow up with some more today since it is cool out again (75 & overcast).
There is some news brewing this morning. The first item is that the paper mill in Niagara is on fire. I am waiting for updated news at noon. The other item is that the Marinette County Sheriff’s Department is looking for a big guy with a red star tat on his right wrist. Apparently he robbed the bank in Pembine yesterday and managed an escape. The last guy didn’t get far.
Being the fourth week in May the forests are pretty well filled in and the animal and insect world is alive and well. The forests that I could see into a month ago are now a wall of green. There are still a lot of plants and trees coming in, but it is pretty well along. There are some trillium around still, but they are becoming less common.
The insect world, on the other hand, is flourishing. Last weekend found a few friendly flies, some river bugs like mayflies, and our old friend the wood tick. Moths and butterflies are becoming very common and wide of variety. I am happy to report that I still haven’t encountered any mosquitoes, other than the few pioneers in the warm stretch in March. The wood ticks are pretty common though, prepare yourself for them with a little Repel around your legs and pants cuffs and you are good to go.
There are more critters around this week. The squirrels and chipmunks are very active. The deer are present in the roads at night. Driving some forest roads the other evening at sunset I found a lot of whippoorwills near the road as evidenced by their very insistent calls.
This coming weekend is Memorial Day Weekend. There will hopefully be a lot of people visiting the area. There are some events lined up. One is the VFW memorial service and picnic at the Silver Cliff Memorial Picnic Grounds. There is the McCaslin Lioness Faire in Lakewood, note that both events are on a Sunday. I recall hearing about the Town of Stephenson VFD having an event this weekend, but I don’t have a date on it yet, and I am not sure if it is a rummage or bake sale. I will catch up with that and other events when I get a paper tomorrow or Friday.
Speaking of rummage sales, the signs are already up at a lot of houses between here and Crivitz. Rummage sale fans should have a good weekend.
Weekend weather… can you get back to me in a few days?
Thursday and Thursday night there is a chance of rain and storms coming our way, but——– the latest models have it big and mean until it gets to our area, and then it evaporates like the last one did. Previous models have shown it giving us some decent rains, so in my opinion, that one could still go either way. My bias is toward it evaporating. We could use the rain. That and we have seen it so often that we have a name for the phenomenon, the Silver Cliff Split.
Behind that Friday looks nice, with a mix of sun and clouds, and a high of about 75.
The weekend weather will be dominated by a storm coming in Friday and Friday night, and staying in the region until Monday. The NWS has rain chances at 30% Friday night, 50% Saturday and Saturday night, a 30% chance Sunday night, and 40% chance for Sunday, Monday, and Monday night.
Friday is predicted to be about 75, Saturday looks like it will be about 70, and Sunday about 80, and Monday could see mid-80s.
The rain chance daily sounds a lot worse than it actually is. Right now it looks like the people that skip the weekend over weather will miss out on a good one. I looked at the forecast models and the HPC QPF to see what we are really in for. Most of the time frames with rain for our area have us in the lightest bands, and those frequently don’t bring us rain. The QPF on the weekend suggests that we will see a total of 0.25-0.5″ over the weekend. That is one good downpour, or maybe two medium ones, and the heaviest rain is centered on Saturday night.
Here is the HPC prediction. With daylight savings time we are GMT -5 hours, so this is valid from 7pm Friday night through 7pm Sunday night. We are in the third level of green, 1/4-1/2″ for the weekend.
Here is the latest model animation from the NCEP GFS forecast model. The first storm is our Thursday storm, the second one is the weekend storm. As you can see, the weekend storm mostly goes around us. It might change, but right now it looks like a mostly rain-free weekend in spite of a chance of it daily.
Well there are a million and one things on the to-do list, so I am off to dive in. My plan is to return Friday with a weather update and events once I get the local paper.
Have a good week and thank you for visiting!
RJB