Greetings and welcome!
Our warm fall has turned quickly to winter. Over the weekend a cold front came through with about 1-1.5” of snow, which remains on the ground and roads.
Behind that cold front came some very cold days with a high of 22 and a low of about 10. That made a huge leap forward in our freezing of the ground and lakes. You can walk out a few feet on small lakes but not much more. That is likely to change for the better very soon.
I have a lot of bad news today.
Let’s start with we are in for a rough El Nino year. El nino winters are typically warmer than normal with below normal snowfall. This is my 25th year doing this, so I have been through a few El Ninos. They almost always suck for snowmobilers.
I have a lot of El Nino memories.. six weeks at a time with no snow on the ground, the snow finally comes, but Thursday and Friday a 55 degree warm front hits and melts down the trails. Then there was the year that it went 70 degrees in late Feb and early March and stole all of our snow.
I remember the one where our little corner of the world was the only one with snow and every traveling snowmobiler in the upper Midwest came here to ride that weekend. One bar owner counted over 1,000 snowmobiles that went past his place. Ugly.
I am not a fan of El Nino at all. About 10 years ago I said that I’d never do the Big Snow Page in an El Nino winter again. It is hard to do daily updates when there is nothing to report.. “Yup.. Day 37 of the season and still no snow. The trails remain closed and we are all hoping that the little fart of snow 15 days out turns into the blockbuster storm that we need.”.
“Yup.. Day 38 of the season and still no snow. The trails remain closed and that little fart of snow 15 days out has evaporated in the latest model run.”
This year’s El Nino does not look good. We have had three La Nina winters in a row, which is kind of unusual. Now the rubber band is snapping back and this year’s El Nino is expected to be very strong. This week there were some anomalies where much warmer than usual sea surface temperatures started showing up on the west end of the El Nino warm water plume.
There has been significant discussion among experts about if this is taking some of the thunder out of what could be a very strong El Nino, or just a glimpse of things to come this winter. Not good either way.
That brings us to our next bit of bad news. I am going into semi-retirement this year. My health is failing, I don’t ride as much as I used to, old age is slowing me down, and my new house presents challenges with getting a lot less snow than my house in Silver Cliff six or seven miles away.
Right now the plan is to keep up with updates on the weather and general trail conditions, but not on a daily basis if nothing is changing.
That brings me to the worst news of all. Our snowmobiling friend, weatherman, and web site guru John Dee has passed away. My heart goes out to his wife and young daughter.
John Dee was a genuine force in the snowmobile community. Hundreds of thousands of people read his weather reports, journals, and message boards, and constantly hit the Northwoods Cam Network.
He was more than that behind the scenes though. He did very successful fundraisers, was active in the local snowmobiling organizations, and much more.
He passes with the respect, gratitude, and friendship of literally hundreds of thousands of snowmobilers. RIP John Dee.
(Ed note-I verified this on his message board under the Misc section. There is also a Go Fund Me for his family there.
https://johndeeforum.com/threads/john-dees-obituary.61533
https://johndeeforum.com/threads/john-dee-gofundme.61534/ )
That is it for me today. Have a good December and we will see you soon.
RJB