Friday December 8th, 2016

Greetings and welcome!

The ride to work this morning found almost two inches of new snow on top of an icy layer from the rain.that made the snow heavy and the roads very icy. The snow amounts decreased as I went east. It became a mid-30s drizzly day that had the snow soft and melted roads.

Late afternoon a wave of heavy rain moved through the area. That rain was dark green and yellow on the radar, and was coming down pretty good. It is just now moving off to the east at about 8:30pm.

I was in Crivitz and Wausaukee again this afternoon, and the rain had taken a lot of what snow that they had away. It knocked it down here too, we just had more of it.

The ride home from work after 5pm was very challenging. There were some icy spots as the rain hit the frozen roads. The biggest challenges were the heavy rain and as little as 100′ visibility from the fog from the rain hitting the snow covered ground.

Was this a beneficial storm or a disaster? It depends on how much snow that area had and what is left when it freezes. Areas that had enough snow to absorb the rain will yield a nice ice base when it freezes up, probably Saturday night and Sunday.

I was looking at the snow along the driveway thinking that I had until about sunset Saturday to get it where I want it before it freezes into a brick.Once it freezes up it will be there for a while.

Areas where trails hold enough snow will get good results. Areas with less snow lost a lot of snow cover today.

Hopefully we will see an inch or two as the storm departs to soak up the rain and give us more base. Considering that we had early season conditions to start with we could use it.

I will get a better look around tomorrow. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB