Greetings and welcome!
It has been a real challenge to update this week. My virus came with a wicked brain fog that made it hard to write two sentences.
Yesterday when I was in Lakewood there were tracks on the grade by the grocery store and on the trail near Waubee Lake. In both cases the tracks were in the inch or so of new snow on top of the hard base. Last night we had a surprise inch or two fall after dark, which can only help.
There is nothing to give us hope for extending the season. I looked at my forecast models and there is no meaningful snow likely for a least 10 days. The GFS was showing a couple of big storms after St Patty’s Day.. that’s great, but it is too late. Once the trails close and the ground thaws it is just a mess.
The weekend looks too warm for a snowmobiler’s comfort. Saturday the NWS has us for sunny and mid-40s and Sunday sunny and mid-50’s. Ouch. Monday and next week does not get much better.
I just saw that Iron Snowshoe has closed their trails south of HWY C effective today. North of Hwy C they remain open. Oconto County trails close for the season Sunday night.
Steve said yesterday that from Carter north and west is still good and Dun-Good is reporting good trails up that way (other than bare road trails). That would be my recommendation for last chance weekend riding.
I still plan on a couple of more updates once my head clears a little more. There is storage stuff to talk about, thank yous, and a few other things to take care of.
For now have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB
I will not be at Rapids this Saturday. The last thing that I want to do is share this nasty cold/respiratory infection with my friends so I will remain self-quarantined for at least a few more days.
A last minute addition that I forgot..
Last week we were talking about albedo. That is where the sun is absorbed by the dark branches of the trees and sometimes makes us warmer than Green Bay or other open areas in the spring. A lot of you talked about it with me and said that it makes sense. This week I saw a micro version of that in my yard and snapped a picture of it.
Around my spruce and white pine trees there is a big area of no snow. Yes the branches shelter that area somewhat so it started with less snow. In this case the sun warmed the dark branches creating a warm micro-climate and melting the snow from around the trees. My hardwood trees only have this a little. The dark pine branches is the difference.
This was a weird year. We had some very cold weather very early-on along with some record-breaking snows around Halloween. Broke a low temp record here in Chicago in early-mid November….it got down to 7 above and only in the low teens for highs. The early snowstorms broke records too… It looked promising, but it wasn’t to be. Since December 1, we’ve been way below average in snowfall, and had way more mild weather than cold…tho we did have a few decent cold snaps. Needless to say, we had only 1 sub-zero day, which is OK by me! Only got the xc skis out maybe a half dozen times, which is pathetic, not to mention the conditions were mediocre, at best.
The Southern Wisconsin ski hills were making snow like crazy during the pre and early season as they took advantage of the early cold temps…. So, at least i got to go twice this year… And my boys are in a youth ski club, so they got to go a good number of times….. But now, it’s only early March and Winter is basically over. I was hoping to hit the slopes one more time, but i think i’ll hafta wait till next year….
Hopefully u dont have the budweiser virus