Greetings and welcome!
The focus this moring is again on the pending winter storm for late week. The forecast models are coming into pretty good agreement on the latest few runs. They are showing the low pressure area tracking over the SW corner of the state and moving northeast. The latest run backed it up a little more to the west, and instead of exiting the state over Iron Mountain, it is shown tracking over the western UP.
There are a variety of ideas being presented on how much will be rain and how much will be snow. Normally this path of the storm would produce mostly rain for us. The NAM is on board with that, the GFS has more cold air involved with the storm, and is more favorable for snow.
Right now the NWS is going with the colder forecast. They are looking for snow Thursday, a mix Thursday night, and then snow again Friday and Saturday for us.
I remain skeptical. Usually we want the low to track between Chicago and Sheboygan, any farther west and we miss the snow and get rain. This path is almost a whole state west. The only thing that will rescue us is the storm pulling in a lot of cold air. It is a somewhat abnormal scenario, but it happened last time.
I also recall more than a few of the last 10 years where we would get a rain storm right before the Christmas to New Years stretch. It sucked then, but ended up giving us great trails later in the year with a very durable ice base. That is sort of the scenario that I am envisioning at the moment.
When I was out last night the trails hadn’t changed much. The couple of dustings this week made them look a little better, but that will change withthe passing of the first few sleds.
I have some very mixed feelings about the storm. We certainly could use some base, no matter if it is ice or snow. I don’t like that it is coming over the Christmas holidays when a lot of people will be traveling.
This came up during the blizzard downstate (snowmageddon if you must). Snow guilt. I am delighted when we get snow to play in, but frequently am not a fan of the timing or impacts on people.
Just so we have this straight, no one ordered this. My standing order is for 3 one foot snows in early December and 6-12 every Wednesday after that, except for holidays. As long as we are being ridiculous, make it not snow on paved main roads or in big cities where it is a problem. I wish I could make all of that come true, or even had a say in it. We don’t. We just play in it when it happens.
At the moment I am a little concerned about this storm. A big ice storm or a lot of snow over Christmas puts a lot of people traveling in adverse conditions. I’d love to have the base on the trails, but the timing could be a lot better. If there is a positive, it is that the temps will be around freezing, and salt will be very effective.
Well, I am off to town. Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!
RJB