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