Greetings and welcome!
2:30pm
There is not a lot going on at the moment.
It is 3 degrees outside and the winds are from the WNW at 16 gusting to 35. That puts the wind chill roughly in the -20 to -30 range.
There isn’t much for blowing snow at the moment. Most of the easy stuff has been moved. There are drifts across the driveway, and the deck is drifted knee deep. It needs to be said that I live in a wooded area. Places with open fields most likely have very different conditions than I have right now.
So far the trees have handled the snow well. I don’t have any trees or branches down and the power is still on. Looking it up I see that about 50 people near Wheeler Lake in Lakewood are out of power, but there is a crew on site.
The word on the local Facebook page is that travel from Crivitz to Green Bay and point south is possible but there will be a lot of icy spots where the wind blew the snow across the roads and it got packed down into ice. Apparently there were a lot of accidents in/near Green Bay and the Fox Valley.
There are exotic road salts* that will melt ice at 3 degrees, but they are very expensive, so the ice will be a real factor once you leave state roads. *Magnesium chloride will melt ice to about -5F and calcium chloride is good to -25. I believe that the state uses the calcium chloride.
In open areas don’t be surprised to have the wind whip up some clouds of snow that will cause a sudden whiteout. I have also driven past stands of big pines just at the perfect moment for the wind to unleash a blinding whiteout from the branches.
The wind is actually expected to pick up later today and into tomorrow as the low pressure area gets closer. That is likely why there are still winter storm warnings even though it doesn’t seem too bad right now.
Iron Snowshoe did open trails today. Expect a lot of early season challenges. There are other trails open in Marinette Co, and I will refer you to the http://marinettecosnowtrails.com page where you can sort through specifics for each trail system. Oconto Co trails remain closed.
I am looking at the unpleasant task of snow removal in -20 to -30 wind chills. The thing that kicks my butt is that the forecast for next Wednesday is for 39 degrees and rain. The thoughts in my head about that are not family rated.
There is a storm possible around New Years, and it doesn’t look like snow. Earlier model runs showed a super intense snow storm. Either way I am not putting much stock in it yet. The medium term forecast models almost always change dramatically after a big storm. We will look at it after the weekend before getting excited about it.
That’s it from here. Have a good Friday and thank you for visiting!
RJB