Greetings and welcome!
The storm has been a bit of a bust for us. We have almost 2” of slushy snow and it is raining. It isn’t anything that will get us back on the trail, but if it ever freezes in it will make a big reinforcement of our big glorious ice base and help restore trails that share paved roads.
Something I noticed was very steady temperatures. Athelstane Weather shows a low of 31.1 at about 7am and a high of 31.8 at 12:36pm. We are at 31.5 at 7pm as I write this.
When I went outside a few minutes ago to catch a package it wasn’t freezing, it wasn’t melting, it was kind of on the edge of both and really wet. We are looking at a low of 29 tonight so it should firm up a little overnight. We are expecting to see 40 tomorrow so it is a hollow victory.
The storm for Friday looks equally disappointing. The evening news weather animation showed the storm hitting Green Bay and south and then doing some sort of funky gymnastic pivot to miss our area for the most part. The NWS says that we could get 1-3”. The Euro model is a little more generous with 3-5” possible.
This whole sloppy mess will finally freeze in about Saturday night when we get into the teens.
It needs to be said that I only know what I see out of my window. Things are likely very different even ten or twenty miles north. I saw a Facebook post from a guy that said it was snowing like crazy between Laona and Crandon and travel was a challenge. It sure didn’t do that here.
A lot of times when the rain/snow line is close elevation matters. Goodman or Carter are a couple of hundred feet higher than I am and that can make a huge huge difference. Conditions can change fast heading north or northwest, and this is likely one of those storms. I have a hunch that places like Townsend, Goodman, and Armstrong Creek saw a very different storm than I did ¼ mile south of Silver Cliff. I look forward to seeing some of those reports come in.
Once we freeze up over the weekend we have a lot more normal temperatures ahead. With a monster ice base it won’t take much snow to get us back on the trails. It might come with Friday’s snow.
So.. at the end of the cliche.. all is not lost. I think that we will end up with a big ice base that will buy us an extra weekend or two. It is mostly a question of how soon will it freeze solid. There was a lot of melting and flooding, and the snow in my driveway is like mashed potatoes. I’d be surprised if it was solid by the weekend.
That is news for today. Have a good Thursday and thank you for visiting!
RJB