Greetings and happy new year!
Iron Snowshoe and Near North have reopened trails today. The clubs are all still asking ATVs/UTVs stay off of the trails. Ranger City Riders trails remain closed due to flooded trails and there is a trail closure in Pembine for the same reason. The snow from this storm AGAIN stuck to the trees so don’t be surprised to see low hanging trees or branches or downed trees.
We got down to a low of 1.3ºF last night and that will help our cause.
I checked the Silver Cliff house yesterday and measured a solid 4″ there from the Monday storm. A report out of Goodman said 5″, and other reports said Florence Co and over toward Rhinelander saw 6″.
With all of the rain and all of the melting there will be a lot of wet areas. I saw pictures of the trails east of Athelstane and trails along 141 that were badly flooded. Those won’t be the only areas. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see some slushy or frozen areas where the snow packed down to the wet layer.
The weather ahead looks a lot more typical of this time of year. There are no big thaws or rainstorms shown on the 16 day GFS model, and no brutal Arctic cold waves. There are a couple of clipper systems that could bring small snows, and a couple of bigger systems that have potential too. Mostly it looks like very comfortable conditions for riding.
This is going to be an unusual year. Lakes and swamps never did freeze solid and won’t until we get a protracted cold snap. There isn’t much frost in the ground either. At the same time the area got hit with no less than 4 storms that weighed down trees and branches and brought them down, and there is a 100sq mile area to our west that just got leveled by a late summer storm. You won’t even recognize some otherwise familiar areas.
It is ok though. We are snowmobilers. We help each other and overcome challenges. It is what we do.
Have a good new year and thank you for visiting!
RJB