BigSnowPage.com

Monday March 8th, 12:30am

I am moving to my spring and summer spot. I update just like I do here, and I have a pretty nifty new page. Please set your bookmarks to http://www.northerndestinations.com/scindex . I will have a new update coming overnight for your Monday morning reading

Thank you!

RJB.

Sunday 3-7- 3pm- Athelstane Weather is reporting 58.1. It is really nice out.

3-6

4:31pm- We are through the heat of the day. It was a nice one, 55.9F @ Athelstane, and plenty of sun. Yowza yowza yowza.

11am

Dan G updated with this..

Chute Pond trails will remain open this weekend, in poor condition with bare spots
and icy corners in the woods. We will close for the season at 7:00 am Monday, March
8th.

Thanks Dan!

March 5th, 2010

The next week of NWS forecasts have 40 somewhere in every day’s forecast. Some could go into the upper 40s like the next two days. The GFS has been relentless over the last 3-4 days continuing to push storms anywhere but here for it’s entire 16 day duration.

The fat lady sings clip below is funny stuff. It was exactly what I was looking for. Too bad they wouldn’t let me embed it. Without further adieu,  here it is.. the fat lady.

MixerKing is right, the trails might be done, but the world does not come to an end in these parts between seasons. As I have said many times over my decade here, this is a great time to escape. The businesses really appreciate your visit, and since they aren’t busy, your favorite places are running specials to compete for the people that are around. They also have time to hang out and chat, get to know you, and make friends. Busy weekends are great, but a lot of times you guys are on a mission to do X00 miles, and I have to keep running too.  At the end of the day I end up  wishing that I could have visited longer with some of you. Here we are.

I will be back next week. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

March 4th

Greetings and welcome!

Athelstane Weather had 47.3 & sunny yesterday, I saw the car go as high as 53. There is no hope of a big storm next week anymore, at least not according to the last 6 or 7 GFS runs.

Per Dan G’s request.. here it is.. the fat lady.

RJB

Brad, could you or your neighbor e-mail me

Greetings and welcome!

So much for a last ride… Yesterday I woke up a little later than expected, and it was already a mashed potatoes and light jacket day. The 44 & sunny day got the melting going pretty good and it was obviously no place for a warm blooded sled on one last ride. (Curses, foiled agagin) I ended up going for a walk.

What about the storms that we have been watching for weeks on the GFS? The last four GFS runs have shown them doing a variety of stuff, but none of it involves snow for us. Unless that changes we are very done for the year. There probably are still riding opportunities around here by trailering to that secluded pocket of sheltered snow or maybe on the lakes, but otherwise it is looking like the end. The forecast through the weekend is for more sun, more melting, and a good chance of picking up another 5-10 degrees late week and for the weekend.

Another sign that it is over is out on Craig’s list. Not only is my stuff not moving, there are deals out there that make me crazy. I wish that I had 10-20G to invest. There are some pretty silly prices as people try to offload winter gear. If you are looking for a super deal, it is now.

It was not a good winter for us, but it could have been worse. Like last year, I never saw a full foot of snow out of one storm. I had hopes that the various teleconnections like ENSO, the PDO, and the AO would line up our way and make El Nino Modoki better than a regular El Nino. Silly rabbit.  The arctic opened up and pushed all of the cold air to the deep south, and left us with a mild winter. I am not complaining about missing the -30 nights and a high of -5 for weeks, but even a couple of more snows would have made the predominant 25 degree days a delight.

It was crazy watching our storms go and snow on the deep south and east coast while we couldn’t buy a 3-6 inch storm. Silly thoughts turned to buying a snow shack where it does snow and starting a club. I was thinking that the Birmingham Yankee Drift Busters would be a good name, right up there with the Atlanta Trail-Cats, or Orlando Sno-Wizards.

A big project sucked up all of my time in November and December and left me way behind on my sleds when the snow did come. I eventually caught up, and am watching the meltwater run past three running sleds.

The new leadership of the River Road Riders surprised me and left me with a nifty crapped-on feeling when I was shown the door and replaced by someone charging thousands for what is worth hundreds, and I did for free, but they continue to have my support because I have so many friends in that club. The Bear Point Sno-Cruisers got off to a great start and has a promising future.

The best part of the winter was that we did have pretty many good weekends, and a lot of you got a lot of good miles in. It didn’t hurt that it started good in December. I am also very appreciative for all of the people that supported me here, came to visit at the Rapids, and sent in hard earned dollars to keep the wheels turning.

I am probably going to take a few days off other than watching the storm, then I have plans on coming back with a photo gallery of pictures from this year. Beyond that I will be moving back over to the Silvercliff site with my blogging after a little time off. All of this melting will eventually end up going to our various whitewater rivers, and hopefully the spring rafting brings a good season. Our watershed is up by Crandon, and they had a pretty normal year. With any storms at all hitting us, the river should roar.

I found my way to this area originally because of the whitewater, and it was such a nice area and set of rivers that I stayed. Now I do the pictures and videos at Kosirs. If you want to play in the snow one more time, spring rafting starts the first weekend in April.

Plans for next year involve mostly trying to do what I do here better. Health and finances willing, hopefully I will get to report on great trails and get in a lot of miles. Retirement is not in the plan or on the list. Current forecasts do NOT expect an El Nino next year, Modoki or otherwise. We shall see.

In the meantime, I will be back if the storms start coming our way again. It could still happen, but with the sunny and mid-40s over the next 4-5 days probably hitting 50 a time or three, maybe it is time to raise a toast our friends, thank you for a great season, and wish you health and prosperity in the days ahead. This Bud’s for you.

Thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

11PM- Going to do my overnight bit here to let the comments keep rolling.

In my travels today I saw some still sweet sun sheltered forest roads and some good enough trail. There is plenty of ugly too thanks to the sun. I decided that I was being a trail Nancy and that I should pay the price through the bad to find my way to some of that nice stuff for a last ride. Even if it is only 20 or 30 miles in trade for a bit of carbide & slide, I have to try. As much as anything it is to keep the end of season blues from kicking my butt. I had a real motivation problem today and hated every second of it. Now I am fighting back.

The weather this week looks bad with sun and highs in the 30s and 40s. Today is the first day of meteorological spring, though the equinox is not until the 20th.

The latest frame in our weather soap has two big storms after the weekend. This time they could both go either way. I am a little nervous about precip type since there isn’t a lot of really cold air to the north of the storms. There is still a chance of big snow out of one or both storms. They could fade out or go south. They could bring  rain or ice. Don’t miss tomorrow’s exciting episode of As The GFS Turns for more questions and yet another scenario.

On a more serious note, it is good that the models are showing a breakdown in our pattern. That and March’s active weather could get interesting.

3:30

Sigh. It is sunny and in the low 40s. The thermometer in the sun says a little over 50. Like Slug said, there are probably pockets like Chickadee that are still ok, but for me it is done until it snows. I did ride both sleds.

The GFS model is trying to get a handle on the big storm. Sometimes it works out good when they struggle with a big one. The latest 3 runs have it doing the Minnesota option (all rain here) once. Twice it is showing it pushed back to Tuesday, starting as rain, ending with nice snows, and a snowy few days behind it. It is worth watching, but I am not getting too invested in it yet. Some scenarios continue to suggest the start of a breakdown of the high pressure dominated pattern, and hopefully some stormy days.

In the meantime I am parked for now.

AM Report

Friday brought a little more sun than we had hoped, along with some traffic. Saturday did not bring 35 and cloudy with an inch of snow as predicted. It brought 41 degrees, traffic, no snow, and more sun than we wanted to see. The end result was some rapidly degrading trails, some of which were just good enough to start with. There were some good miles to be had, but some bad trails in marginal areas too.

Sunday brought a little relief when it  brought what we had hoped would happen Saturday.. a big overcast, a high of 35, and light snow all day.

There were a few long faces Saturday, but be happy you rode when you did. Unless you are riding today or Tuesday, the near future does not look promising. The force field of high pressure that has made our winter miserable will be rejoining us this week. Look for a sunny week with highs in the mid thirties to low forties. As the high pressure moves east late week, the back of the clockwise circulation will likely bring some warmer air, entering the possibility of one or two of those sunny days getting out of hand temperature-wise.

If you think that I am a real bundle of joy this morning, just wait. The big storm that I have been hoping after for three weeks finally started getting closer in the forecast. Now we are looking at it coming about next Sunday. The forecast models are flopping a little on this one. The first two model runs on Sunday showed it coming in as a glorious 12-15″ snow storm. The second two really dashed hopes. Those are showing the high pressure not moving far enough east, and the storm heading north over Minnesota. That would still bring us 1-1.25″ of precip, but the rain snow line wouldn’t be south of Lake Superior or within 300 miles of us to the west. Like the January storm, it would leave a little, but not much snow in it’s wake. Behind the storm the high pressure returns and pushes the next storm south, leaving is in bad shape through the 15th.

So it looks like the big storm could make or break the quest for another good ride or weekend.

Is it time to give up? It is just a forecast. What if it changes again, and this time shows a foot of snow sometime between Thursday and Sunday? And then a second storm just like it? Birmingham and Atlanta aren’t the only places that get snow.. It could still happen.

I will admit that I have a hard time admitting that the season is over every year. At the same time I wouldn’t tell you to bet a weekend on a 5-7 day out forecast either way. The same criteria should probably apply to the end of the season. March is full of surprises. It may end badly, but it may not. We could well get another storm, another ride, another weekend.

On the personal side.. I did get talked out of my riding time late week by work. That had to be. Today I am going to need the secret password, severe arterial bleeding, to talk me out of it. As usual the day will start with some shop time. I have visions of auctioning off the XLT and parts to try and finance another broken down or low buck needs work project sled or two, RXLs naturally. I have two in mind, but need to cross a payday or two. Four RXLs? Sure, why not?  No tellin’, Ed & Steve..

While looking for the stickers for #2 last week, I found out that the XLT is good through this year. I did not know that, or it might have seen a few more miles. That could see some work and then a few miles, and then another ride with RXL #2 is planned.

Well, I am off to bed about 3 hours earlier than usual. Have a good Monday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

10am

Greetings and welcome!

I only have a few things to cover here, then I am hoping to buckle it up and ride.

It is a sunny start to the day but so far not a warm one. We have peaked at 27, and the forecast is for 30. The sun is not expected to last long. The clouds are already going onshore from Lake Michigan and heading this way. They have made significant progress between when I wrote this and when I proofed it, and it shouldn’t be long now.

Last night I was surfing around trying to figure out an easy way to keep my RXLs running a little cooler on hard packed trails. Early 90s 650s were always warm blooded, and mine are no exception. I did not find my answer, but I found this. Maybe it is just what we need in these crappy El Nino years.

MissFire left a comment this morning that the NEW Low Buck Vintage Riders is having a trail ride this weekend from Racer & LanaRae’s (on W just east of Caldron Falls Rd) over to the Pines at Crooked Lake and back. This vintage ride has been a hit for many years. The old iron is great, and the people are too. The way that I remember it, newer sleds are welcome too, but you ride in back of the pack (koff koff).  Checking out this ride is highly recommended. You might even win an antique sled in a raffle. While you are down there, check out the outhouse races by Wheel Inn, almost across the road from Racer’s. My apologies for missing the vintage pinch on my event calendar.

They have dialed back snow expectations a little for tomorrow. We are still in for maybe 1/2″ by Saturday noon, about half of what was predicted before. That is a tough call for forecasters to make. Predicting energy and precip on the back of a storm is about like predicting a lava lamp. Good luck with that. At any rate there should be at least a few flurries or snow showers over the weekend. While it might not have an impact on the trails, it should be as I put it yesterday, festive. You neven know, there could be a pleasant surprise brewing too.

Well, I am off to pull the rope before I get sucked into the day’s work.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

6PM

It is a little early to drop the gavel, but I think we might have dodged a bullet today. It was sunny out, but it was also in the mid-20s. There was not a lot of visible melting around the yard, though there had to be some sun erosion on sunny hills and such. From here it doesn’t look like we lost much. Yesterday’s tracks are still in puffy snow, the roof isn’t dripping, and it is cold out. Unless tomorrow gets really out of hand, we should be golden for the weekend.

Looking at the info, tomorrow has a chance of being not as bad as it sounds too. The cloud cover is only about 20-30 miles off of the west shore of Lake Michigan and moving this way. Hopefully that stifles tomorrow’s sun before it has a chance to get carried away. At the least we should have high clouds filtering it a little like we had today. SuperTomorrowView9000000-X shows full clouds by late afternoon Friday, and light snow or flurries by midnight. The half inch to inch of snow Saturday sounds festive too.

Today was a work day, so I that I can tell you so far is what I see off of the front step. It was a very full and productive day, but I haven’t left the house, let alone go ride my new toy. I have very different plans for tomorrow.

The weekend forecast is a good one, cloudy and light snow or snow showers with highs in the low to mid-30s. If all of these forecasts hold together, it should be a good weekend.

Specifics..

The new snow benefited from about Caldron Falls Flowage and points west. There we saw 2-4. Trails should be improved toward Lakewood, Crooked Lake, Mountain, and up 32 into Forest County. We did not lose much to melting this week, the trails should be like last weekend with varying amounts of new snow. That should continue to bring good conditions to the north and west as well as the areas that saw snow. Iron snowshoe still has some trails closed east of Parkway and south of C.

Happy trails and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Noon Report

Greetings and welcome!

We have a sunny day outside today. Happily it has only gotten to 26 so far.

According to the latest from the NWS and the TV, things are going our way a little. They now have the clouds and light snow chances moved up to Friday night. The TV actually shows snow moving overnight and a chance of some (light) new stuff on the ground for Saturday morning. Now if we can just move it up to Friday morning, or better yet, Thursday noon…

Today is a work day, but I am going to try to get out for a ride a little before sunset. I haven’t decided on heading north vs heading toward Lakewood or Crooked Lake yet, but those are the leading choices at the moment.

Last Friday I was depressed about the melting snow and the fading season, and I did one of my favorite things. I went for a ride in the woods in the truck. It was very therapeutic. Along the way I shot a few pictures of recently opening spring creeks along the road..

Thanks Randy.

I forgot to put it in a subsequent post, but the water slide video was real? fake? It was a very well done fake. They used 3d and compositing to have the impossible look like it was done. They came out with the truth so that folks at home wouldn’t get any ideas.

One last item, Dan from Chute Pond left a comment and verified that they had 3-4″ too. As Monty Burns would say.. Excellent…

Overnight Report

Last Call?

Greetings and welcome!

I almost have to think that this weekend is last call for most people for trails in these parts. Mostly I base that on my look at the GFS for next week, which looks like sun, sun, and more sun. The sun is getting hot to the point that it did burn 2-3″ off of the sunniest hillsides in only a matter of a few hours of full sun yesterday. Most places fared fine, but plowed roads, road shoulders and the sunniest of spots saw sunburn. If next week brings a week of mostly sunny days and temps in the mid-30s or higher, the following weekend will probably be a non-starter, at least around here.

There is still a very nice storm for that weekend, about 3-7, but at the moment the GFS has it coming in Sunday night which won’t help most of you.

In addition to the sun, our normal high temp is climbing past freezing. In Rhinelander yesterday the normal high is 31. When I look at the variability of the area’s climate, I see swings of +/- 10ºF as normal and very likely, and swings up to +/-20 within normal variability. Add that to a normal high in the low or  mid-30s, and you will understand my concern.

Along that same line the forecast for the next 2-3 days has me a little nervous mostly because of the sun. Today’s predicted high of 27 & partly cloudy is bad enough, but when the NWS starts with the mid-30s and partly cloudy Friday and Saturday I am a little nervous. There is nothing worse than reporting good trails mid-week and watching them melt Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

There is still a chance that the big low out east could move west a little and not only cloud us up, but bring light snow for the weekend. The NWS is showing that for Sunday, but today, Friday and Saturday still in the partly cloudy category. The GFS is a little better for Saturday, but Friday is up for grabs.

Zooming back to the present day…My travels yesterday showed me that the snow was very area specific. Even a few miles east of here totals drop dramatically.

C & I in Silver Cliff

Athelstane had less than an inch new. It got to be a little more at the Silver Cliff line and west. West of about Rapids Resort seemed to have 3+ or better, at least as far as the county line. I haven’t been west of there or north yet. The radar showed the snow hitting nicely from Carter south probably well past Mountain, and they probably saw a nice boost of fresh stuff.

Yesterday’s test ride was a blast. Ol #2 gave me a lot of grief in the shop, and needed every imaginable service, and yesterday was my turn. My ride took me down Landing 11, across to Chickadee and to where Chickadee meets C and back. They clearly had some good snow that way. The bad trail between the two roads had been panned by the Iron Snows, and was glorious compared to what that stretch looked like a few days ago. There was no dirt, a couple of puddles, an icy base, and otherwise good trails. Chickadee was a riot as always, and had plenty of new snow, at least 3-4″. I didn’t have the camera for that because it was a 10 minute test ride in shop clothes that was so fun that it went 30 miles.

RXL #2 is my new dirty girl. There has to be a mod chip in there or something. It has a non-Polaris no name EFI box, and is really snappy. It is head and shoulders faster than my other one with a fresh rebuild on the engine. Just wow, what a little snot for an old sled.  Even the neighbor came back grinning from his test run. The suspension is softer and was a nice ride. Add a high windshield, and I am one happy fat guy. Hey did someone mention a sundae bar? (stomach growls..)

As always, Chris did a better job of collecting events for this weekend than i did. We have some good ones..

At the moment my advice would be to ride as soon after the snow as possible. There will be nice trails. Areas that did not see much snow should look a lot like they did last weekend. What the next two or three days will work out to be is the question now.

Have a good Thurssday and thank you for visiting!

RJB