Greetings and welcome!
We had another warm day today, and the sun made its first appearance in a few days. The bank clock by work in Wausaukee showed 49ยบ Wednesday afternoon, and with the sun shining it felt pretty nice out for December 9th.
Tonight I walked out by the Indy Trail to check on its registration and felt how soft that the ground was underfoot. I don’t know if there is any frost under it, but the top of the ground was very soft.
For all practical purposes we are starting from zero as far as frost in the ground and ice on the lakes. The ground and water are cold and will freeze fast when the cold comes, but a low of 37 (last night) and a high of 49 isn’t going to get us there.
It is expected to stay warm though the end of the week, though the weather will vary with a couple of small disturbances passing through between now and Saturday.
There is a bigger storm on track for Sunday into Monday. Right now it looks like it will be about 100 miles too far west to be a big snow maker for our region. In the context of a storm that big four days out, I am not too concerned yet.
It is expected to cool off a little behind the storm, and there are at least three chances at snow between next Tuesday and Christmas. A couple are bigger storms that look promising.
They had an interesting tidbit on the TV weather tonight. They showed a satellite picture of WI and the UP and it looked pretty dismal. Most of the picture was green except an area between Marquette and the peninsula, and a little in the snow belt area between about Rhinelander over to Eagle River and north to about Lake Gogebic. They said that we have an estimated 16.4% snow cover. Last year we were at 77.4%. Ouch.
The reason that I went outside before was to get the registration number off of the Indy Trail to get the trail pass. It was reasonably painless to get the $10 pass, but I had done my homework. I had my AWSC club membership number and registration sticker in hand. I went to the link on my trail pass page and a couple of form boxes and $10 later the trail pass is on the way.
If you are not on top of the registration and trail pass changes for this year you will want to get on it. You need to register the sled, and allow the DNR a little time for that.
You also need to join a club and have them give you an AW#SC membership card and number. While our clubs sport some really outstanding secretaries, remember that they are volunteers with jobs and families and Christmas looming two weeks away. You should probably allow a little time for memberships to be processed.
The new system is structured to get a lot more people into the clubs, and lot more money for grooming and trail construction.
Out of state riders are strongly encouraged to register the sled in WI and join an AWSC club. Riding here will be a lot cheaper, and again it benefit the clubs and trails.
Have a good Thursday and thank you for visiting!
RJB