Greetings and welcome!
I did a bunch of firewood splitting the other day, and I have a good start on wood. The old wood burner is going as I type, helping set the mood.
Last night brought the annual ritual of putting too much wood in the wood burner and sitting in the tighty whiteys for a couple of hours with the doors & windows all open. Hey they said that it was going down into the low 30s, and it stayed in the upper 40s. I was going to leave, so I fed the heater. I got back sooner than expected, and oops, it was about 110ºF. Note to self, that was the reminder not to put too much stock in weather forecasts this winter.
Also helping to set the mood.. I got 2-Stroke Cold Smoke 10 snowmobiling video from Netflix and watched that right before bed last night. Watching those guys playing in all of that powder certainly got me going.
Along the same line, the storm that just came through with over an inch of rain would have been a real dandy as a winter storm. The storm had two low pressure areas in a row. The first one probably would have been rain and eventually heavy snow. The second one would have had a little more cold air to work with, a little more favorable path, and the more intense precip. That might have worked out very well in winter.
It has probably been a month or more that I have been looking at storms through the lens of what if that storm came on that path came in December, January, February. I understand that it isn’t accurate for a lot of reasons, but it is an interesting what-if. So far we would have been getting just pounded with snow instead of watching from the sidelines. It would have been an interesting ride though with some warm stuff in the front of the storms, and storms where the second wave was the strongest (surprise!). There also would have been some really brutal cold blasts.
There is some merit to looking at present day weather for clues on the winter. We are in La Nina conditions, and well into the moderate range already. It is expected to last through early spring, so this might be some of what we are looking at. Likewise, the patterns didn’t change much between summer and winter last year, dry summer, dry winter.
The little proxies in nature like the paper wasps that I watch are all showing signs of an unusual or wet winter, but they are pretty subjective, and mostly for entertainment. More of concern is the typical La Nina pattern putting us into a pretty cold winter with a lot of northwest dominated weather. I am expecting a heavy duty winter all of the way around, and am more than a little concerned about it. As usual I am scrambling to get ready.
There was some discussion about winter coming early this year. It looks like it is going that way. There are a couple of big cat 4 hurricanes in the Atlantic ( pretty unusual), and they will likely pull some cold air down from the Arctic as they pass east of us. Like the guy in Twister says, “..It’s not coming, it’s already here.”. As the calendar progresses I do believe that with some exceptions, we will be in for a cold fall.
Also somewhat seasonal, I was a little cranky last Sunday. It wasn’t the exhuberance from Saturday night, it was that I wanted to be at Hay Days with a couple of G and a big truck, scooping up last minute bargains. I couldn’t do that, and I didn’t like it.
Speaking of exuberance last Saturday night, I walked into Rapids Resort and no sooner sat down and cracked a can and who walks in but Slug Radke of the Bear Point Sno-Cruisers & Bear Point Yacht Club. The bartender thought that we were meeting there the timing was so good. We had a very nice visit, and he made a generous donation plus got an ad spot on the page. Thank you very much Slug!
We also talked about this Saturday’s meeting with the Bear Point Sno-Cruisers. It is their first annual meeting, and it will be held at Newingham’s on Main St in Wausaukee. You can still sign up for the club and be a charter first year member there. After that you can certainly still join, just not as a first year member. I’d have to look but I am pretty sure that I’m #38.
Here is Slug’s E-mail..
The Annual meeting of Bear Point Sno-Cruisers is at Newingham’s Saturday September
18 in Wausaukee at 1:00. This is your last chance to be a charter member. One of the
things that means is your a founding member and you have a special number you keep
as long as you renew each year. Let a friend know. After this weekend you can
still be a member for sure but not a charter one. Lunch is up to each person
bills will be separate for each to pay on their own. We will have samples of
clothing to look at but waiting for venders to give us quoits for apparel. We need
to be able to order one or two pieces at at time but still get a fair price. Sorry
but we are a young club not much money in the kitty to order a quantity to have on
hand. Look us up on www.silvercliff.com then go on the big snow page. We look
forward to seeing you and having some good conversations. We will have guests with
some interesting things to talk about.
THINK SNOW SLUG
We are looking forward to seeing our snowmobiling friends. Chris has been talking about it for weeks. (Good, you can drive home..hehe.) We are planning on being there with the camera. With everyone looking forward to the pending season and the fun people in the Sno-Cruisers, it should be a really good time. Since I couldn’t make HayDays, I’ll make it the official start of MY snowmobile season.
I really do have a lot of ground to cover getting ready with the work around the house, firewood, sleds, websites here and for the clubs, and work. I think this is going to be a big winter and I want to be as ready as possible. I am going to go and get on that. I hope to see all of you Saturday. If not, I will be back with more predictions and misadventures as the season gets closer.
Have a good Fall and thank you for visiting!
RJB