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The Monster Commeth

I guess for us, it has basically just arrived. We did pick up an inch or so of snow overnight, but when I woke up, it was not snowing at all. I was not worried, as we were suppose to see the bulk of our snow fall the second half of the day today through tomorrow night. The snow did start back up around 9 am and has been falling since. We are probably up to around 4-5″ for the storm so far, but like I say, it is suppose to keep up at a pretty decent clip for the next 30 hours or so. So even if it only snows at the rate of around 1/2″ per hour for the next 30 hours, that is 15″ of additional snow.

We’ll see what happens for us, but this storm has already been a monster for other areas of the Midwest. So far the king of the hill is Iola, WI, which sits around 15 miles east of Stevens Point and has seen 26″ of snow fall so far. Lots of 12″+ totals across central MN into central and NE WI and snows have fallen in 12 states so far, stretching from Nebraska to Maine and north to the Canadian border. Here is a map of some of the snow totals so far. It was taken at 3 pm central time. I personally know of 2 separate groups of folks that traveled south for the weekend and are now snowbound. One group in WI and the other in lower MI. Something tells me that there are a lot of folks snowbound where they are and will be for at least the rest of the day today. I have also read stories about folks that were traveling up this way to play in the snow and they were stalled in WI because of the storm.

If things keep up like they are suppose to in our neck of the woods, I would suspect that some that ventured north and made it, will not be able to leave tomorrow. I suspect that schools will likely be canceled tomorrow, as not only do we have the heavy snow to contend with, but winds are blowing at 20-30 mph with gusts to 40. So lots of blowing and drifting is going on.

Today was not the only day we received snow this week. It also fell on Tuesday and again Thursday. Tuesday’s snow was only around 1/2″, but we ended up with 3″ new on Thursday. Some spots have already shot past the 300″ mark for the season and I am closing in on it and depending on how much falls with this storm, I have a chance to reach that milestone.

Most of Thursday snow fell in a short amount of time in the morning. I awoke to around 1/2″, but then it picked up and came down pretty good from around 8 am to 10 am. Just as things were ramping up, I snapped a shot of the truck covered in snow and also the pups having a Keweenaw Slushy. They love to eat the snow!

The snow ended around 11 am and then the sun even came out in the late afternoon and our temps shot up to 40 degrees. Between the sunshine and 40 degree temps, it ended up melting off most of the snow that had fallen earlier in the day. Here is a shot of Millie on the driveway in the evening on Thursday.

I did not get out to take any pictures of the snow today, as I was in the woodshop all morning and then by the time there was enough snow to make things interesting, the winds were whipping it around enough that I really did not feel like doing any traveling. I was brave enough to step out onto the deck and take another shot of the truck covered in the new snow. If or when the big dumping for us is over, I will be sure to get some shots.

I really do not have much more to say, other than I have forgotten to start the Laurium Glacier melt down contest so far this season. I guess with the lack of any melting this spring, it never even entered my mind. But there was some talk on the discussion board about it, so I will be opening the contest up for guesses at 8 am eastern time tomorrow. Here is a shot of it taken on Wednesday of last week.

So until next time…
Brody Strong
Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

The UP Side

Here we go! Another week with a little snow melting and a little new snow falling and things look very much like they did a week ago. I guess the main difference is that a week ago, it was actually snowing, whereas today, it is a beautiful sunny day. It’s been a cold week. We never got above the freezing mark all week, with highs topping out in the upper 20’s to around 30. As far as snows go, no big storms, but we did pick up a few inches every now and then. Enough to largely off set any snow loss, but nothing really gained.

The forecast looks to keep any melting at a rather slow pace this week and then the potential for a monster storm next Friday and into the following weekend. It is a LONG way out to be putting much faith into the forecast and I am done with updating the forecasts for the site for this winter season, but will obviously be monitoring it for my other duties and personal interest all week.

I have to admit that I started the week like many up here, longing for the warmer temps of spring to start melting the snow in earnest. By the end of the week though, it hit me. I have never really liked the month of April up here and the biggest reason is because that is the time when we lose most of our snow, or at least do not have enough to play in, but it is also still too wet and cold to think of doing any warm season activities. So I just usually grumpy it out until things are dry and warm enough to do something in.

Then it hit me. I am having exactly the end to the snow season that I want. That being enough snow to play in and then get rid of all of it in a 2 week period and bring on summer. So far, the first part has panned out. We are hanging onto enough so to play in (and then some). If all goes as planned in the current forecast, then a week from now we will likely have even more snow on the ground than we do right now. That puts us at April 15 with enough snow still on the ground to play in for another 5-7 days, which takes us to around the 20th-22nd of April, at which point it is nearly impossible to hag onto snow for another two weeks (except in 2013 and again in 2014!).

So, no telling for sure what the next 3-6 weeks will hold in store for us. Perhaps I’ll be loading my sled into the back of my truck to take a Memorial Day or even June ride! For now, I will just enjoy the ability to still play in the snow if I so choose.

Speaking of playing in the snow, the entire Dee clan got out for a ski today. The past two days have been very cold and very windy, so just not real nice to be out in, even with some sunshine. Today the winds were fairly calm and temps rose to around 30 degrees, so we all piled into Nora’s vehicle and headed south.

It always amazes me on how much dogs pick up on. They are always excited to go with us in our vehicles, but when we are headed to do something fun, that excitement gets ramped up 10 fold. They bounce around the back of the vehicle, wimper and stick their heads in between the two front seats to see where we are. Today’s ride down to the ski spot was no different. They were running around like crazed animals before we even stepped outside the house. Then once in the vehicle, they were doing their thing. So it was extra special when we got to where we were going and able to all get out of the vehicle and stretch our wings.

The weather was perfect for a ski, with the sunshine pouring down on us and temps around 30 degrees. Nora, Grace and the pups got a bit of a head start on me, but I was able to catch up, then eventually pass them for the gold. Well, no medals were awarded, but a beautiful view of Lake Superior as awarded to each of us for finishing. Nora had been talking with a friend who is a seasonal resident, going away to the SW US in the winters. She had said she was a little worried about her place and wondered if we wanted to go down to it and check it out. We had actually planned to ski or snowshoe today anyway, so it was a perfect fit.

Arriving at the home, all looked good, but they did lose a bit of shoreline in last autumns storms. We relaxed a bit down by the lake and afforded me the opportunity to take a pic of the newlyweds. We were just getting ready to take another shot, just in case the first did not turn out well, and were photo bombed by this cute little girl. She was so cute and so sweet, that we decided to take her home with us. 🙂

We were down in Jackobsville, where the snow is usually a bit less than the rest of the Keweenaw- at just about anytime in our winter. So there was not as much snow as we have at our place, but still plenty to ski on in most spots. There was one spot on our ski where a hill was exposed to the south and the full sun and it had lost most of it’s snow. Nora and I chose to just walk across the grass and weeds exposed due to the melting, but Grace thought she would stick to the snow. She almost made it to the top, but after a couple of tried decided to follow Mom and Dad.

We made it back to the vehicle, then home and are all nursing some sore muscles. Even the pups! I do have to say that I was pretty amazed and delighted to watch them run around like they did. If one would have had to guess their age, they probably would have been in the 3-5 year old range and over 9 years old! Anyway, they both are very relaxed and very quiet right now!

So I guess that about covers it for this one. It sure will be interesting to see if I am talking next week about the dumping of snow we got, or the rains or perhaps how the forecast was a total bust and how we got rid of all of our snow!

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

Consistency

I actually have been sitting here for around the past 30 minutes trying to come up with a title to this weeks entry. The obvious theme is the fact that little has changed. However, I was struggling with the best word(s) to use. So I went back through the previous entries for some guidance and it did not take long at all for me to realize that I should avoid the word “steady”! A little bit of help, but not quite what I was looking for. A bit more sitting here and then I decided to just start writing the actual entry with hopes the title would come to me. At that very moment, the title came, so here I am!

The biggest event up here for me in the past 7 days has been the arrival back home of the girls. They got back Tuesday, safe and sound, from their trip and it was great to have them home. The remainder of the week was spent in a fairly relaxed mode. I had my regular work to do, but other than that, we all just sort of took it easy and enjoyed their spring break.

The weather was rather unspectacular. We did pick up around 4″ of snow Monday and then things were quiet for the rest of the week. Cool temps prevailed through most of the week as well, with the exception being Thursday when we had a one day warm up to 52 degrees. Along with the sunshine, it gave a little taste of spring, but was quickly shut down by temps only in the 20’s Friday. There were thoughts that a fairly large snow event would hit on Saturday, but it decided to jog just to our south and impact the southern/eastern UP, as well as central MN and northern WI with it’s 5-10″+ snows.

This time of the year, a storm like that always brings about mixed emotions, as I still love a big snow as much as I would any time of the year, but it also just delays the arrival of bare ground by a few more days. I did have plans to play in the new snow, but after awaking to just a dusting and light snow falling Saturday morning, the riding was called off and the crew that was to ride ended up meeting for lunch instead.

It did end up snowing the rest of the day and the final total by sunset was 3.5″, but still not enough to make the concrete snow much fun to play in. It was a pretty quiet night last night and then today we got into some lake effect snow. Around midday, a small-scale Bayfield Bomber even set up and gave us a brief period of heavy snow. Between the lighter lake effect in the morning and the burst of heavier snow around midday, we ended up with another 3.5″ for the day today. I suppose there is probably enough fresh snow on top of the old to make for some OK riding, but with tomorrow being a work day for me and no plans made to ride with anyone today, I stayed in.

Going forward this week, it looks like a little bit of fresh snow from time to time, but again the heaviest snows look to pass off to the south of us. Not just a tiny bit, but around 200 miles. In a bit of a “twist the knife” move, Mother Nature is going to hit some areas that saw the least about of snow (vs. average) this season with one, possibly two. So if you are reading this from places like central WI and northern MI, be prepared to see some snow. Perhaps as much or more than you have seen all season!

In a way, I feel a bit of redemption, as those areas were really the main stand outs for not being in the ballpark on my seasonal forecast. If both snow events do strike as indicated, then my ideas presented in my seasonal forecast put out in October were pretty close to what happened this season. However, having two big snow events in April be the main mechanism for central WI and northern MI getting close to average snows is kind of like having your opponent score the game winning goal on themselves to give you the win.

Anyway, back to things up here. The locals are growing more and more impatient with the lack of melting we have had so far this spring and while I am the only one with any real concerns for the growing potential for some bad flooding from the melt- once it finally does come, I suspect that there will be more and more up here joining me in that concern. I am not so much concerned for our house flooding. We have no basement or even crawl space and the buildings are all up at least 1-2 feet higher than the rest of the ground around us. So our chances are quite small for flooding, but not zero, but there are a number of places up here were it does not take too much to flood in the spring and with around 4-5″ of water locked up in the snow right now, the chances for that only grow with each passing day and no melting.

The other downside to having so much snow still on the ground is that it is hard on the animals of the woods. There has been a pretty regular stream of chickadees to the feeder the girls put up and we took a drive to Jacobsville on Friday and I have never seen so many deer hanging out down there. I will admit to not getting down that way a lot in the wintertime, but it was not only Jacobsville where the deer seemed to be more plentiful. We met up with friends for dinner in Eagle Harbor on Saturday and the deer in town were also more numerous than I have ever seen. There were even a few using the frozen harbor as a pathway for transportation. I hope they do not keep that up too much longer, or trouble is bound to find them.

I suppose a few of you might be wondering why I say it is not good for the animals of the woods right now, but yet I talk about so many being seen. That is because the deer “yard up” in the lower snow areas in the winter and will forage there because the lower amounts of snow make it easier on them. However, by this time of the year, the snow has typically melted enough to allow them to spread out a bit and find new areas for food. With all of this snow, they are all still in the same confined spots and the food sources are growing more and more scarce. Its not a good sign when you see they have been eating things like pine trees, as that is typically one of the last things on their list of choices.

I guess the good news for them would be that in about 2 weeks, the snow should be mostly gone. That kind of rapid melt could lead to flooding, but that is not a concern to them. Just finding food.

I guess that about covers it for this one. I suspect that it will be another week of not much to talk about, as the weather looks to be fairly tranquil and little in the way of snow loss is seen. Perhaps a good week to finally get into the shop and start making sawdust!

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

The home stretch

Here we sit, the final week of March is upon us. For many areas, the snow play season ended weeks ago. For some, it was resurrected in some fashion for a bit with the snows of yesterday. For us, we still have a very deep depth for this time of the year. It has been another week of not much melting and nothing new. My snow depth sits at 34″. I am certain that one could find deeper snow up this way if they ventured further north into the higher terrain.

I completely got past my stomach bug about a week ago, but then was attacked by a cold bug. It has not been a nasty one, but since it immediately followed the nasty stomach bug, I have not had a lot of energy in the past 7 days. So I have not done much exciting in the past 7 days either. In fact, when I think back to this past week, I am having a hard time coming up with anything I did that was too memorable.

The girls actually departed early on Friday for a quick little get-a-way and will be returning Tuesday morning. So it has been just the pups and I the past 3 days. Needless to say, with my lack of energy leading to just wanting to lay low, it has been a very quiet house the past 3 days! We all have been eating pretty well though!

So as mentioned, little in the way of snow loss has occurred in the past week. The exceptions are anywhere the snow is touching some kind of bare surface, like a roadway, roof or even a driveway that had the snow moved from it all winter. That is exactly the case for our driveway. Big Red and the blower do an excellent job of clearing the snow, as well as keeping the snow mat from getting too thick. The mat will vary in thickness though and is it always surprising to see how thick it actually got in some spots, as it always looks like it is only around an inch thick. I would say that the thickest it ever gets is around 3-4″, but that can pose problems when it thaws!

It can also pose some problems when enough snow falls that it needs to be cleared and there are the bare spots underneath. The blower on Big Red has no problems scooping up the rocks by the bucket load and shooting them right along with the snow. So unless we get a really big dumping, such as 12″+, I will probably not be moving snow from our driveway, or at least that section of driveway the rest of the season. The blower will remain on Big Red for another 2-3 weeks, just in case, but I am thinking it has the rest of the snow season off.

Where the snow has not been touched by Big Red and its blower, it is still plenty deep. In fact, in areas where the snow has had more snow added to it by Big Red, the depth is quite incredible for the 25th of March. The banks are around 5-6 feet deep and that depth extends about 30-40 feet towards the woods where the snow is blown from Big Red. It looks like a few more weeks until Gracie is able to use the swing set!

There is even one remaining roof with snow on it. The front roof of the woodshed is pitched so low that the snow just does not want to naturally slide off of it. As you can see from that last picture, it will slowly slump towards the edge of the roof, but I have to chop away at the overhanging part to get it to fall. Perhaps I should let it go one year and see how far the drape of snow will go. Probably not the best of ideas for the roof though!

The Big Lake still has a fair amount of ice on it. For those worried about that impacting any lake effect production, not much to worry about. Much of it is not solid or connected securely to the shoreline, but for ships traveling across it, they need to do a little zig-zagging to avoid getting into trouble. However, we are also just about done with lake effect season. We can still get some at this time of the year, but nothing like we get from Dec-Feb. Where the ice is “fast”, meaning it is solid and connected to the shoreline, the US and Canadian Coast Guard ice cutters have been busy keeping pathways open for the ships to use. In the last shot, you could barely make out the pathway made in Whitefish Bay, so here is a zoomed in version, which clearly shows the path through the ice for the ships. I found it interesting that at least for part of the pathway, it seems to follow the international border between the US and Canada. Only the final leg of it appears to stay in US waters as it heads towards Whitefish Point.

This past week, the girls put out a feeder for the chickadees. They are about the only birds that stick around all winter, with the exceptions of the crows and some other birds of prey like eagles, hawks and falcons. We strayed away from using too many bird feeders near the house years ago because they were attracting things other than birds too, like mice and squirrels. I think this one is far enough away from the house to not draw in too many mice to the house and the squirrels already know where we live! It did not take long for the birds to find the feeder and it has been a pretty active spot for them since going up.

With the driveway slowly emerging from the snow mat. We have begun our search for copper. The rocks are from the poor rock piles left over from the mining. They just take the larger ones and tumble them to get what is called 2″ aggregate. There is still a fair amount of copper to be found in those rocks, at least from a scavenger’s standpoint. Nora and Grace are the champs at finding pieces of copper and I had never found one. That is until Grace and I gave Nora a metal detector for her birthday a week ago and we all tried it out. I suppose it really does not count using that device, versus looking for them with the naked eye, but none the less, I found a dandy!

So I guess that about covers it for this one. Question for the week is…Will there be more, less or the same amount of snow on the ground when I write next?

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Steady as she goes

Not a lot to talk about this week. I traveled to Lansing Tuesday and gave a presentation to the MI County Road Association Wednesday morning, only to turn around and high tail it back to home base by Wednesday evening. Lots of driving for a short presentation, but I am glad I went. I got to see Lansing for the first time in my life and also enjoyed some delicious BBQ. A couple of you heard my call out for places to eat in Lansing. If I had been there longer, I would have tried them all, but “Meat” in Old Town got the call Tuesday evening, as I was pretty tired, it was casual and I really had a taste for some BBQ. I am always a little worried when I go to a BBQ place, as it is a tricky thing to get just right. I am still working on my techniques, but even if you get things cooked just right, it can be hard to keep the meat fresh, without drying them out. I am not sure how this place did it, but I can say that the brisket I had was the best I have ever had in my life so far. That includes BBQ out of Chicago, a good sampling from TX and my own. It most definitely inspired me to get the smoker fired up and going as soon as the weather gets a little more favorable for that.

A few hours after getting home Wednesday night, I came down with a very nasty stomach bug. It had me completely wiped out for all of Thursday and Friday and even yesterday, I only had enough energy to run to Calumet, pick up a few things and then come home. I am on the mend now, but I think it will take my body a while to recover from not eating anything but toast and drinking water or ginger ale for around 60 hours.

The weather this past week was quite similar to the week before. Some snow early in the week, then quieter, with just a few snow showers the rest of the week and cooler than is average for this time of the year. The snows of Monday night and Tuesday did not hit us the hardest. That happened in the higher terrain of Baraga and Marquette counties. I got to drive through it Tuesday morning just for proof! A pretty solid 6-8″ had fallen there, with just a couple of inches in the Keweenaw.

We have not lost much snow in the past week either. Although I have not been out on the trails, I can say there is still plenty of snow on them. the only area that was getting thin that I saw was the stretch through Hancock that rides along the road on the bike path. It was still covered at last check, but was mixed with a lot of road grime and for all I know, it may be bare now. Otherwise, the depth in the woods both on and off trail is about the same as it was last week at this time and barring any bit time warm up, the groomer operators will likely be running right up until March 31 in most of our system this year.

All in all, it has been a pretty good snow year. Not epic as a whole, but we did have some epic moments and not too much in the way of down time. The forecast does not hold any major meltdowns. In fact, not much new snow, but most of our daytime highs look to top out in the upper 20’s to low 30’s this week, with lows in the teens. So that will do very well to preserve what is down.

Really, not much more to say for this one, so I will sign off, but take care and…

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD