Greetings and welcome!
Yesterday’s snow didn’t amount to much. By sunset it has accumulated a little spotty slush on the roads, and had changed back over to rain. The base softened up a little on top but didn’t get hurt too bad.
Today is supposed to be in the mid to upper 30s. For a while between storms we should see a stretch without rain.
A check of the GFS still looks good for the storms next week. The one for about the 20th is showing some rain in the beginning, but also 3 frames with 3-6 possible, and one with 1-3 at the end. If it changes over sooner, we can add another 3-6 or more. It is probably a little exaggerated, but I like what I see.
The Christmas Eve storm looked like a 2-4 or 3-6 affair before, and mostly snow. The chance of a little rain first has been introduced, but the snow totals have also gone up. If both storms come home we will have some nice conditions for the Christmas to New Years stretch. It is also a week out and could change-better or worse.
One of my little guidance methods is to not trust the models too much behind a major storm. Often the storm comes through and the outlook is very different than it was a few days ago. I will have a little more confidence in the outlook of these two storms after the Wednesday-Thursday storm.
The Wednesday-Thursday storm still looks like almost all rain. The latest guidance suggests the possibility of an inch or two of snow as it moves out. The track of the low was from about the Twin Cities heading NE and passing over about Hurley. Now it is shown as going from the SW to NE corners of the state. Even if it did just clip the SE corner of the state, as is ideal, there isn’t a lot of cold air behind it to make it a big snow producer. I’d welcome a pleasant surprise though.
I did a little shopping for the season last night. I live in my polypropylene long johns, and needed a set of those. I ended up with a pair of surplus ECWCS poly long johns for about $25 shipped on E-Bay. You can get crazy on the price on your under layers, but it is money well spent. As they go, these are priced pretty well, hopefully they are good.
Also on the shopping list is a battery for the sled. The old EFI system gets a new battery every year as a regular maintenance item. I found a sealed AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) battery with about 20% more output and a two year warranty for about the same price that I usually pay for a standard battery. I stumbled into that when I did a little cross referencing and found that the battery also fits a lot of quads, so I searched under Suzuki quads and viola.
Yesterday brought the first time in a week or more that the wood burner was allowed to go out. It was a cold stretch, and I haven’t needed a lot of kindling. Last night after dinner I got it up to about 80 in here and it coasted all evening. As of 2am it is still 70. I will probably do that again in the morning and check the chimney and see if it needs cleaning.
The warm day today will bring a little time in the wood yard and a visit to the shop. The shop needs some cleaning and reorganizing before the sled gets pulled in, and that is tomorrow’s mission. I have to take advantage of a 35-40 degree day. Hopefully they are pretty rare over the next three months.
That is it for the overnight report. Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!
RJB