Greetings and welcome!
Current temperature-
39 Rhineander
40 Antigo
41 Bowler
This morning is cold, but Tuesday night could see a little frost in the Northwoods.
It is getting to be that fall season that brings so much anticipation and preparation for the winter ahead.
The big deal in the short term is Hay Days. That is always the weekend after Labor Day, which means this weekend. Hay Days is a huge event with an enormous swap area, hundreds of vendors, grass drags, snowmobile and motocross extreme riders, ATV pulls, and all sorts of stuff. A lot of write-ups suggest that you can’t see it all in a day. Here is a link to the official program, and a link to last year’s photo gallery.
As always Labor Day weekend brings scramble time at this time of year with outside work, firewood, and all of the stuff that I want to do before it gets too cold. It is a very long list this year. I have cars, snowmobiles, chain saws, and all sorts of stuff to work on, so I am on it.
The elephant in the porta potty on the list is firewood. I usually go for about 6-7 cords to heat the house, this year 7 is going to be a minimum, and I am shooting for closer to 10. I am expecting a long heating season this year, and some pretty real winter.
My instincts are telling me to buckle up this is going to be a good one. For some reason I am really driven to get an early start on fall preparations, and really sure that I need 9-10 cords of wood this year. I don’t know why, but I have learned to trust those instincts, so I am running with it.
As far as my official winter forecast, I am not ready for that. I looked at the ENSO El Nino/LaNina forecast that came out on the 27th, and that looked great. The models are showing good consensus on us having an ENSO neutral year. That is usually a positive thing for us. Years with strong signals either way are usually not good seasons, years close to neutral generally are better.
The part that I haven’t done is looking at the various teleconnections like the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations. They are patterns like the ENSO ( El Nino Southern Oscillation) that also have a big effect on our winter.
If winter looks like this summer, we are in the mix. We didn’t have much really hot weather, and we had a decent amount of precip.
If we have a repeat of last winter, other than those couple of weeks in January, life would be good. The rain then snow roller coaster ride brought some of the best trails and late season riding that I have seen. There were a lot of happy riders last year.
Anyway.. I mostly just wanted to stop in, wave hello, and let you know about Hay Days. For those that can’t make it, the Parkway Inn Country Fling is also this coming weekend. It is a big party outside under the tent with live music and a cookout. Good times.
See you soon and thank you for visiting!
RJB
PS- As far as getting snowmobile access to the bay of Green Bay by Peshtigo, chances of that went downhill. The DNR planners ignored our input and went with the standard “an emphasis on non-motorized recreation” thing in the second of six goals in the planning documents. That might not close the door completely, but it doesn’t sound promising.