Greetings and welcome!
Winter has come early this year. We have been consistently at least 10 degrees below normal for most of the month, and around 20 degrees below normal for a lot of it. By my wild guess estimation we are about 4-6 weeks ahead of where we would normally be right now.
Friends reported 1ºF on their truck thermometers Sunday and Monday mornings when they went out too hunt in the morning. Yesterday Athelstane weather marked -0.8ºF, the first below zero temperature that I have seen so far this fall.
Right now at 11:30am Wednesday it is up to 19º, still a little below our normal high of about 38. I have pretty much given up on doing my outside work over 30F, other than the next two days it looks like that ship has sailed.
At this point the ground is frozen, and has been for probably at least two weeks. It is still holding snow, an inch or two in sheltered spots and a little patchier where the sun can hit it.The snow gets a lot lighter as you go east even 10 miles, and by the time I got toward Crivitz there wasn’t much.
When I drove past Waubee Lake late last week it was frozen all of the way across. I have not been past the flowages lately so I don’t have a report on their progress. We do have a good start on the lid on the lakes though.
I don’t see anything in the forecast that is going to reverse this trend. It looks like the winter of 2018-2019 is off to a very good early start.
Have a good week and thank you for visiting!
RJB