Greetings and welcome!

It was a fun weekend around Rapids Resort last weekend. A lot of nice folks passed through, both old friends and new ones. Thanks you guys.

There were pretty many people around the area last weekend to snowmobile. Rumor has it that Lakewood and points north saw a lot of snowmobilers. We had a few come by who said that the inch and a half of snow last week went a long way in our area, but that it was still pretty icy.

This week is starting out on the exciting side. There is snow in the forecast, a few flakes in the air, and this coming weekend is the biggest weekend of the year for events.

The snow is a small storm out of Minnesota that will bring long duration light snow. While there are watches and warnings out for a good bit of snow downstate, the northern line for the winter weather advisories is about a mile and a half south of here.

Forecast totals vary. According to the TV weather guy we should see an inch by morning, and then snow Tuesday and Tuesday night. My guidance shows anywhere from 1-3 to 3-6 total, with 2-4 being a pretty common range for us.

The NWS forecast is for a couple of inches in the forecast, but the special weather statement introduces the possibility of 4-8 for Northeastern WI. I like the sound of 4-8, so let’s go with that for now, knowing that 1-3 or 2-4 is more likely. It would not surprise me if the storm went a few miles north of what is predicted and blessed us with a little extra, but I am not betting on it this time.

Speaking of snow, check out this snow totals map from Washington DC. Man I wish that was northern Marinette & Oconto Co.. 38.8″? We would be riding ’till April no problem, and then the Spring whitewater rafting would rock too.

The second weekend in February is without question THE weekend for winter events in our region. Here is the list so far.

The forecast for the weekend is a great one. Look for mid-20 for daytime temps and overnight lows in the 5-10 range. That sounds pretty comfortable, especially if it is padded with a nice blanket of fresh snow.

That is about it from here for now. Let’s hope the snow gets really out of hand. Have a good Monday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

People that head north this weekend to ride should find pleasant weather. Today should hit 30, and Saturday and Sunday should be in the mid-20s.

There is a chance of light snow today south of Green Bay and more in MN.

There is a minor chance of snow late weekend and Monday. Tuesday might actually bring 1-3 if the model proves out(not likely).

Beyond that there isn’t much new to report. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

There is a little light snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, and again Sunday and Monday.

This is the result of the storm well to our south extending up this way courtesy of the circulation from the big high pressure area in Canada. As the southern reaches of the high bring easterly winds, the snow could get augmented by the lake effect. Some areas in WI could see 3-5 close to the lake, but we are looking at light snow.

There is more light snow possible again Sunday and Monday and again several times through the long term forecast. There are no big storms obvious now, but even a minor retreat of the blocking high pressure could change that.
In the news.. The Iron Snowshoe opened trails south of C back up. You will want more snow before you ride them in most areas, but if you are bent on it at least you are not trespassing.
The fire at Thorntons was in the local paper today. There wasn’t much new information excpt that Cathy said that they were going to try to rebuild as soon as possible.
In the e-mail Dockside sent me a few events. They are having a super bowl party Sunday with drink specials, raffles, and they will raffle off an LCD TV. They also have bucket golf  and a meat & prize raffle coming up March 13th.

In events for this weekend I have the Feb 6th Trump Lake Fishoree in Wabeno. Chris added the following..

Another couple of inches of light snow would put me back onto the trail in carefully selected spots. It won’t help bare roads and dirt spots too much, but at least there will be something on top of the ice base where it survived to cool and lubricate.  For now the inch or inch and a half is just good enough to make it look a little better.

As far as riding, the word is west of 32, north of Lakewood, and north of 8 and west of 141 will bring good or good enough trails. Around here we need more snow to heal up the damage done by the thaws and rains of a few weeks ago.

That is about it from here. Have a good Thursday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

There is not much to report today except for the new snow. Yesterday’s light snow added up to a little over an inch of puffy stuff.  It is a start. It won’t fix the bare spots but it did hide a lot of the ugliness from the melting.

The GFS is showing a chance of a little more light snow Friday, but the NWS does not agree. The models have been back and forth on that one. It is a little extra precip being blown north off of a storm hitting Alabama, Tennessee and the southeast. It is not much to get excited about either way.

Have a good Wednesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

11am Tuesday- Snow!

Overnight Update-

Greetings and welcome!

Lots of comments yesterday-I like it.

My travels yesterday took me past Rapids and I retrieved my camera. Now I have the picture of TC  & the guys, the mouse nest that killed the RXL#2 motor, and a picture from the Thornton’s fire.

About the hottest news beyond that is that the weather forecast changed a little. Yesterday the light snow for today and tonight were expected to go downstate and miss us. Now it looks like we are in for some light snow both today and tonight. The NWS says less than an inch each, the TV shows us at about 1.5″ total. The bad news is that the hope for light snow all weekend is fading.

That and that there isn’t much else to talk about in the forecast in the way of big storms. There are a few small disturbances like today’s ahead, maybe the light stuff will add up a little.

It wouldn’t take much on some trails. There is a lot of ice base, we just need snow to top it and fill in the bare spots. It will take a good snow to fill in some ugly road shoulders and stuff, and some of the trails to the south.

For now it looks like you don’t have to go too far north to find trails. See the comments from the past few days.

In events for this weekend I have the Feb 6th Trump Lake Fishoree in Wabeno. Chris added the following..

That is about it from here. Have a good Tuesday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

It sounds like more than a few of you found good trails not too far north of here. See the comments from the last report. ( Thanks you guys!!) Riders that stopped by our neighborhood, mostly with sleds on trailers or by wheel, came back with similar reports.

From my various travels Friday and Saturday I saw a lot of ice. Roads, driveways, and trails all were thick with ice. The rain a week ago soaked into the base and made it a rock. The freeze thaw rounded it off and made it very slippery. It will be a heck of a base if it ever snows on top of it to give it some traction and fill in the ugly spots. As it stands, some roads, driveways and trails are pretty slick with ice.  Reports had the flowage glare ice.

The big news over the weekend is that the bar at Thornton’s Resort burned down Friday night. The fire started after they closed, and at 3:30 the fire departments were called and it was already fully engulfed.

That is a big disaster for anyone, but they were running the radar runs and fish-o-ree on Caldron Falls that started early in the morning. That had to be a rough ride. They did carry on and have the event and people said that there was a good turnout.

You might have noticed the full mooon over the weekend. It was the Wolf moon, so named for the hungry wolves of January howling, and probably the source of the classic iconic wolf howling in front of the giant moon pictures.

The moon travels in an elliptical orbit. January’s full moon was a perigee moon, meaning that it was at the closest point in it’s orbit path. It was 14% wider and 30% brighter than the rest of the full moons of 2010.  February’s full moon comes on the 28th, and is called the snow moon, due to Feb often bringing the most white stuff. Let’s hope so.

Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day, and it feels like I am in the movie. I keep checking the 16 day GFS for a sign of a storm, and it keeps coming up with none.

What is going on? Well, we are under a force field of high pressure coming out of  Canada. That keeps pushing the storms south. We can’t even seem to get a proper clipper system.

It is not the dreaded El Nino, but it’s distant cousin the Arctic Oscillation. The AO is negative, indicating low pressure in the Arctic, and high pressure in the mid-latitudes. That high pressure is shielding us from storms.

I took a look and the models show the AO staying negative for a few weeks and bouncing back. (More info)

In the shorter term, our week looks comfortable but not too snowy.We should start out in the low 20s today and get into the upper 20s for late week and the weekend.

It looks like our light snow for Tuesday washed out, with the bulk of that snow going downstate. It isn’t much of a storm, more of a minor disturbance.

The next chance of snow comes Friday and all weekend. Again it isn’t much of a storm, bit it will keep light snow in the forecast for Friday-Sunday. There are several other minor disturbances that could bring light snow over the balance of the 16 day forecast.

While we don’t have as much snow as we would like, let’s take a little field trip to Mount Hood, Oregon. Some place called Mount Hood Meadows has over 40″ since Tuesday and  get this- 640″ for the season (53feet  4inches). I wonder if they would sell a couple of feet cheap. Link Hat tip to ‘Steve Oregon’, commenter at the Watts Up With That Blog.

Several people asked about the fate of the bunny hunt on the Iron Snowshoe trails since much of the system is closed. I have not heard that they suspended it. Presumably you can get to the various trail stops by car to get the clues.

As far as taking the plow off of the truck and stealing parts off of the snowmobile, the snowmobile goes down later today. I will be swiping the pipe and battery to see about hearing RXL #2 run. The plow will come as time permits.

Finally this morning, a really cool video that Slug sent me.  It is an awesome snow machine circa 1925 or so. You should go watch it, it is really neat. I want one. If you look down in the comments, there is a link to another more advanced one that is quite impressive too. The pop up following the video showed this wild off roader too. It is a little off topic, but pretty cool.

Thank you to all that stopped by the Rapids this weekend.

Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

.

Greetings and Welcome!

Holy Cow, it’s Friday already? Yowza. I guess I got sucked into working on my store. Day turns to night turns to day and pretty soon, you start loosing days.  I figured the bad conditions and cold weather was a good chance to skip a day or two, but not all of em. Sorry.

Trail Conditions-

Around here in Silver Cliff the trails are closed south of C. North of C they need more snow for the bare spots. Rumor has it that you can ride north of 8 and west of 32. Dungood, LMT, and the 100 miler are reporting good enough or better trails. Check out the comments from this week and the individual web sites for verification, I haven’t been there .

Weather-

-I make it a point not to say bad words on this here interwebby thingie, but the weather forecast has it close. In the 16 day GFS  I see a minor chance of light snow the next two Tuesdays, and over the weekend next weekend. Way out in the forecast there is a slight chance that a real storm might graze us. Translation, it is a 16 day forecast of no.

About the only thing good about it is that it is staying cold and we are making ice. Snow lovers don’t have much to get excited about.

The weekend looks good for the radar run on Caldron Falls. Look for highs almost hitting 20 and lows around zero or a little colder according to the TV.

My event calendar shows these events for the weekend..

MS Snowmobile Tour 2010 January 28-31 Northern Lights Casino

Caldron Falls Radar Run- January 30th Boat Landing # 9 by Thornton’s

The River Road Riders and Near North Trail Riders Club Rides were this weekend, the status of those is unclear, as is the status of the poker run at Dockside. You can do the poker run by car, so chances are it will go on.

This no snow and no hope of snow for weeks has me down a little. I am not ready to concede that winter will stink this year just yet. I am worried enough that I will likely tempt fate a little next week once it warms into the 20s. The plan is to take the plow off of the truck and start stealing parts from RXL #1 to work on RXL #2. If Murphy’s Law comes into play, as soon as I disable both, it will snow, and we will all be a lot happier. I don’t think that I can change the weather, but I can tempt fate a little and see what happens.

As I mentioned above this was kind of a lost week for me. It was cold out, so I hunkered down and put in some massive hours in on my new store. We are close to official launch, and I really had some ground to cover.

It is starting to get pretty cool, and I am getting excited about it. The product is head and shoulders better than the competition, and the store is the nicest that I have ever done. It is still a work in progress and will be for quite some time, but it is ready enough for a peek.

I put a link to it up on the top right of the page. It will eventually assume the place with the other ads, but I want to introduce it to you guys as a sneak preview. Take a look, the traffic helps me out both with the search engines and who knows, maybe you might be interested in some of that stuff. In the interest of disclosure, I am invested in the store and I get a commission. I also figure that you guys are a little invested in it too since it took so much of my time this year. That is why you get a sneak preview.

That is about it from here. I might see a few of you at Rapids this weekend, other wise I will catch up with you next week, hopefully with a better forecast and more than two updates.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Greetings and welcome!

That was one crappy weekend. It was warm and misting or rain almost all weekend. It is still above 32 at noon Monday.

The Iron Snowshoe has closed trails south of C. North of C they are open to ATVs and snowmobiles if you really want to ride it. Just say no.

The forecast for snow crashed and burned when the second low scooted off to the east and left us with the warm storm only. That was one of the early scenarios presented, but not in the last five or six model runs. We actually had good agreement among models and for several runs, and the lots of snow scenario was being offered as late as Saturday night when I checked. Call it a painful reminder that it is just a forecast, and I shouldn’t believe it ’till I can roll around in it.

I have not gotten enough reports to establish where the rain snow line was. The radar last night showed it as close as about Carter, but the radar isn’t always that precise.

Looking ahead there is a cold week ahead and some chances of light snow. There are no major storms obvious on the 16 day, but that could easily change.

I reported that I was off of the trail until it snowed after my Thursday ride due to poor conditions. It has been well above 32 and raining since Friday, it is hard to imagine any area trails being decent anymore.

There are some minor chances for snow ahead. Today the remains of the back of the storm could bring a half inch or so. There are a few other minor disturbances later in the forecast as well, but no big storms yet.

I don’t think that our season is over, but it is for the short term anyway.

RJB

Skunked!

The storm did not go as I expected and it looks like we are getting rain. We had almost 2″ of snow this morning, but the rain ate it.

My expected changeover at noon happened, but not here. According to the radar it is snowing in Carter & Wabeno and points west. That leaves us watching the storm from 20 miles on the wrong side of the line. That is what the radar shows anyway.

The bulk of the storm has past, and hopes are slim for snow on the back of the storm. It looks like a dry slot will form and limit snow on the cold side of the storm, so while we might get some, it does not look like a lot. The storm is expected to wrap back around and catch us with a little snow Monday, but the bulk of the precip and energy from the storm has passed.

There is not much to get excited about in the short or long term forecast. It looks like we will be off of the trail for a while. Hopefully that changes.

RJB

Very Early Report

Greetings and welcome!

I have myself worked up a little bit about the pending storm. I am going to go out on a limb and say that it is being very understated at the moment. I am seeing this as a lot like the Christmas storm, which had headlines well in advance. It also brought us 3 weeks of good trails and an A-1 base.

Anyway.. I see this storm turning out to be a very strong one, with plenty of rain, and yes a dandy blanket of snow on the back.

What the scenario brings is two low pressure systems coming together to make a very significant storm. The northern low pressure area is way too far north and will bring rain initially.

As it progresses into colder air,  the counterclockwise circulation of the low will start feeding cold air from the cold side of the storm into the southern low pressure area, cooling it and and changing part of it over to snow. The southern low takes a slightly west of perfect path as it passes the area.

The models are in pretty good agreement with this scenario, except they are showing it a little warmer than my prediction.

The storm eventually grows into a very strong low pressure area. The central pressure is projected to reach 984MB over our area, and 980 as it moves east. That magnitude of low only happens around here a few times a year, if that.

The images are from the 06UTC (Midnight) NAM, and are for noon, 6pm and midnight Sunday.

With high pressure fairly close reading in the 1012-1024 range, there will be a sharp pressure gradient between that and the 984mb central pressure. That means a lot of wind and a very strong storm.

As the storm moves east it continues to pick up energy from subsequent systems, and it is shown turning into a very powerful storm. It will then affect our weather by bringing a flood of cold air right out of the Arctic next week.

If it goes as expected the snow will start about noon on Sunday. Before that, a good bit of rain is likely.

How much snow? Anyone’s guess. I am looking for results similar to the Christmas storm and 4-8 on the conservative side. If it takes longer to switch over, totals will fall, but I am looking the other way for an earlier than expected switch and more snow.

Maybe I am getting all worked up over a forecast, but I think that this will turn out to be a pretty big storm. We will know soon.

*The above was written overnight. It verified well again with the 6am model run. BTW, it looks like a nasty day outside. As of  10am it is just over freezing and there is mist and fog. It is not an ideal morning for snowmobiling.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB