Wednesday November 21, 2012

Greetings and welcome!

So it looks like we won’t win the car as far as the huge storm for next week, but there is snow in the forecast.

We have had above normal weather for the past few days. Our normal high/low temperature for today is 36/20, and yesterday we hit 57. The weekend wasn’t quite that warm, but it was in the 50s.

Now comes the rubber band effect. We have a cold front coming through for about Friday that will probably bring some light snow to our area. Between the strong winds and cold air bringing lake effect snows and the system snow, it will probably be a good snow event for the UP snow belt area.

The cold front Friday is expected to drop daytime high temps from today’s expected high of 56 to highs in the low to mid-30s for Friday-Monday, and a high of 29 Tuesday.

That forecast tells me that will will be making ice on lakes and frost in the ground, and the little bit of snow that we get might stick around for more than a few hours.

Sunday the GFS is showing a weak low pressure area passing to our north that could bring a dusting of snow and a reinforcing wave of cold air.

The Tuesday storm that was so pretty 15 days out on the GFS is actually still there. Today’s version has the low tracking over about Chicago, about 100 miles south of ideal. It is also a much weaker storm than it was two weeks ago. Instead of a foot and a half of snow or more, it now looks like a 1-3 or 2-4″ event. That snow will likely last a while, and hopefully the storm gets way out of hand.

Behind that the GFS is showing a mostly east to west (zonal) flow, but with us in the main flow. We could see small disturbances pass through every few days with a little precip, and about normal temperatures.

Looking at our ENSO region to see what the El Nino is up to, it still looks like an El Not. In order to qualify as an El Nino or La Nina the seas surface temperatures in the ENSO region need to vary from the baseline by a degree or more.

Here is the latest from the Australian BOM ENSO page..

Index Previous Current Temperature change
(2 weeks)
NINO3 +0.2 +0.2 no change
NINO3.4 +0.4 +0.4 no change
NINO4 +1.0 +0.9 0.1 °C cooler

Looking at the Unisys Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly map I am seeing that the ENSO regions 1 & 2  (at the equator just west of South America) as being very cold.

In short, it is not shaping up to be a big El Nino year, at least not yet. Normally we see the El Nino in full swing by Christmas, and so far it isn’t even close to heading that way.

If we don’t see any big changes, and none are apparent, we could be in for a very good winter for snowmobilers. So far the jet stream position has been favorable for us and once in a while we are seeing decent sized southern storms. The 3-4″ of precip in October has me a little excited too. In January or February that would have been quite a month.

I have been working a lot lately and haven’t had much time for anything else. I have spent zero time on snowmobiles or related stuff, and am way behind on my winter preparations. I am happy to have the work, and I have to take it while it is there, even if it means my stuff has to wait until December when things slow down a little. I will be around a lot more very soon.

A couple of days a week I work as a mechanic for a local guy. We work on just about anything, and it has been an interesting place to work. The guy is a mad snowmobiler, one of those guys that puts on 5K a year or more. He will be a good resource this winter. So far mostly it has been bartering for parts and work on my truck, but that is good, it needs it.

Later in the week I have been cooking at Curve Inn. They are on Parkway just south of X, and their land backs up into the High Falls Flowage southern lobe. I cook pizza for AYCE pizza nights Thursday, my fish fry Fridays, and sometimes  Saturday or Sunday.

The food there is good and the people are nice. You can food it anytime that they are open, and they even deliver, including to ice shanties on High Falls. They have really good pizzas and I like the char broiled burgers too. They have good homemade soups, but the chili is a love it or hate it proposition.

I talked to Kelly at Rapids Resort Sunday night and I will be back there bartending on Saturdays when the snowmobile trails are happening. I will always have the camera along and will be more than happy to go and do visitor pictures for the site.

That is about it for today’s visit. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB