Monday January 16th, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

A few people found good enough trails to our north and west, but a lot of trailers heading north kept going last weekend.

Dan & Dillon reported in that they rode around Townsend and Wabeno and found both good and thin conditions.

I got a call yesterday afternoon from a friend that found good conditions from Goodman into Florence Co and over toward Tippler.

Right now it would take trailering for me to ride. Around here the forest roads that still have an ice base under the snow and lakes are about the only options. The places that melted to gravel last week only have an inch or three on them, and it just isn’t enough.

The Iron Snowshoe trail system remains closed. Not only is there not much snow in general, there is virtually none for the groomers to work with to fill in and level terrain features.

There is a little snow in the forecast this week. Tuesday there is a storm that will track over Chicago and on over Lake Erie. This one is too far south to mean a lot of snow for us, but we could catch the northern edge and see 1-3 or 2-4. Wednesday night into Thursday there is a little system coming our way that again could bring a little snow, probably 1-3.

There is another storm coming for the weekend, and it is a much bigger one coming out of the Pacific Northwest. The GFS has the low pressure area eventually tracking over the west end of Lake Superior. We would like to see it track about over Milwaukee. As shown the rain/snow line would be north of the big lake and virtually all of WI and the UP would be looking at liquid precip over the weekend. Saturday only has the minimum level of precip per three hour frame 0.01-0.1″. That looks pretty minor.  Saturday night and Sunday offer a little more with three frames at 0.1-0.25″ per three hours.

Beyond that the GFS is showing an active pattern and some bigger storms, and a few even get pushed our way. I don’t have a lot of confidence in some of what I am seeing for scenarios, so I think that we should let the forecast for next week bake another day or two before we zoom in on specifics.

If you would have told me on November 20th that trails wouldn’t be open by Jan 15th, we would have more days above 45 than nights below zero in January, and that I only had 20 miles on my sled on 1/15/2012, I would have gone all in betting against you. I expected a wild ride and a lot of ice from some storms being rain, but I also expected a lot of clippers followed by sub-zero temps and the occasional southern storm with snow.

What we ended up with is a pretty straightforward zonal flow, where storms move from west to east without too much variation. In the recent past the southern storm path was south of us, the northern one was up in Canada, and we were in the middle without too much in the way of meaningful snow.

Often times the southern jet stream will encounter high pressure over the Atlantic, a blocking high if you will, and it pushes the storms north, hopefully right at us. This year we have not seen much for a blocking high over the Atlantic, and the southern storms haven’t been pushing north into our region.

The good news here is twofold. The GFS is showing us more in the path of the zonal flow of the northern jet. We should see some of the smaller storms coming along it. Good or bad.. at least we are in the game. The second bit of good news is that it is showing some high pressure over the Atlantic and east coast pushing a storm or two our way.

It isn’t a lot to hang hopes on, but it is positive.

We have events this weekend!

Dockside’s annual snowmobile, ATV, car Poker Run will be on Saturday, January 21st. Starts at Dockside at 10:30 to get your cards. Participating are Curve Inn, Parkway, Fisher Camp, Jungle Jim’s and Dockside. You must be back to Dockside by 5:00 to draw your hand. Winner takes all. Cost is $10/card.

Jan. 21 High Falls Flowage at Town of Stephenson Park – Boat Landing #3 High Falls Snowmobile Drag Races
Sponsoed by the Twin Bridge Water Ski Team. Food & refreshments – Call 715-927-3299 for further information
Jan. 21 Northwoods Bar
Athelstane
Wausaukee Lions Annual Brat Fry Starts at 11:00 AMFood & refreshments
Jan. 21 Wouters Front II
White Potato Lake
Annual White Potato Lake Fishing Derby 8am – 3pm – Food and refreshments, raffles and prizes for largest fish.sponsored by the White Potato Lake Sportsmen’s Club

Hopefully things turn around this week and our little storms get out of hand, and our weekend storm tracks south.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

12-22-2010