Early AM..
Greetings and welcome!
We had a cold opening morning of the 2010 gun deer season. Our friends over at Athelstane Weather showed a low of 20.7 Saturday morning and a high of 29.7.
The little pond and marsh south of Carter had more than the first shell ice Saturday morning, it was frozen across. There was also shell ice along the shore of bigger lakes like Waubee. The 1/2 gallon jug of drinking water in the truck was frozen along the edges but not the middle. The river gauge on the Peshtigo showed a fairly sharp drop yesterday, probably from the wetlands that feed it freezing up a little. The colder weather next week and next weekend should start the lakes freezing up.
Unprotected pipes did not freeze Friday night/Saturday morning, at least mine didn’t. The next time I have to worry about that is Tuesday night when it goes into the teens. That is cold enough to start heating the well house and plugging in heat tapes.
On my way to and from Lakewood I saw a lot of vehicles parked along the road as people walked into the Nicolet. Likewise when I was out and about Thursday night there were a lot of hunters around already.
I don’t have any info on how they did yet. I was outside very little yesterday, and most of my neighbors that visit to hunt aren’t up yet. The lack of doe tags probably kept things quieter than usual. At the same time, the guy in the bar Thursday night said that they were still rutting or just after. The full moon for today and an approaching storm should pitch things a little toward the hunter, both seem to make game more active.
The approaching storm is likely to bring us light rain and warmer temperatures for Sunday and Monday. It will start out a little disorganized and then a more together second wave will reinforce it Monday. My upper level maps are showing it too warm to snow, except on the back of the second wave probably Monday night. Tuesday night the skies are expected to clear, and with the colder air behind the storm we could see the teens that I was talking about before.
The NWS has a hazardous weather outlook for this morning. As rain from the warmer upper levels hits cold roads and objects, we could see a little freezing rain.
The storm for Thanksgiving is just starting to come into the scope of the shorter term models. At the moment it looks like a close call, with current maps shwing a rain/snow line between here and Green Bay. That is a lot to ask out of a four day out forecast. From what recent model runs have been showing it is likely to be a 1-3 or 2-4 snow event, though some QPF numbers supported totals as high as 6-9. It is not a huge storm but it bears watching closely.
Behind that storm the GFS is showing a cold north wind and a drop in temperatures for the second weekend. The NWS has the lows Thursday night and Friday night at about +10 and +10-15. With daytime highs in the mid-20s to low 30s, we should start making ice on lakes and frost in the ground. That same cold north wind is likely to give the UP some lake effect snow.
I like it a lot when the lakes and ground has a chance to freeze hard before the snow comes. It looks like we are on track for that this year. There are no big storms after Thanksgiving, and it shows it seasonal or below normal for temps for the duration of the GFS 16 day scope. There is light snow here and there and some variability, but it looks right on script.
Speaking of how seasons unfold, we are making milestones. Last week we had a couple of accumulating snows, and first ice. The next milestone is either the freezing of the lakes and ground, or the first gravel ride. A gravel ride Thursday is a decent possibility.
There is some time coming up in the blue room for me this week. I have a few lingering projects to finish up and it is snowmobile time. In addition to mine getting the seasonal check I have a friend’s XLT to fix up, and a mountain of parts to E-Bay. I actually got a few hours in the other day and made some progress clearing the shop of old projects in anticipation of upcoming snowmobiling work. I am not positive, but I might actually be ready this year.
That is about it from here. Have a good Sunday and thank you for visiting!
RJB