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Snows have returned to the Keweenaw, but the clock is ticking. February arrives Wednesday. We still can get a fair share of snow in February, the record is 89.8″, March is no slouch with a record of 63.5. Looking at the averages, they are 33.7 and 22.8 respectively. The least amount of snow for those two months is 5.5 and a trace, which is a little scary to think about! The odds of breaking the all time high or all time low in both months is quite low, but running close to average for both months is not that far fetched. So 56.5 inches might be a fairly decent estimate of what we have left for the season.

Conditions are not junk up here and it would take probably less than 6-8″ to make them great for trail riding. Off trail would probably take a foot or more. There actually is a halfway decent chance of at least 8-10″ through the middle of this week and at least a foot and a half in the next 10 days. Plus it does not look like we will go back to the pattern we had for most of January. At least at this point!

The snows this week were not much to write home about. A few inches here and there and a total here in Jake of around 3-4″ for the week. The official measurements in Keweenaw County were 5″ new as of Wednesday. That puts the Keweenaw at 12.5″ for the entire month up to the 25th. It will be interesting to see what they got for Thursday through today, because we are still on the road to setting a new record low for the month of January. Not the kind of thing I wish would happen, but as long as we are going to deal with the stink of this January, may as well get a trophy for it!

Not a whole lot I can talk about on the un-personal side, so I may as well jump to the personal. The construction crew showed up on Monday with a big crew and a big old boom truck to get trusses set. They worked hard all day, even with a brisk southerly wind blowing off the lake and managed to get over half of the trusses up. On Tuesday they finished up with the remainder of the big ones and it was really cool to see the roof come to life! 

They did get some of the sheathing up on Tuesday and then spent all day Wednesday getting the sheathing done on the north side of the house. This is the side that would take most of the weather and winds this time of the year. Thursday was spent putting the smaller trusses left to do up and a bit more sheathing. By the end of the day on Friday, they had the entire roof, or shall I day “roofs” sheathed. 

My guess is tomorrow they will get on sheathing the gables as well as the tops of the first floor walls. Some of the windows are supposed to be arriving by the end of the week, so I’m guessing they would like to be ready for that. Perhaps even get some salamanders going once the walls are completely sheathed and the windows are in.

The interior walls still need to be done and Nora and I met with the electrician yesterday and went over the details of that and he is planning to be here in around 2 1/2 weeks. Once the electric is done and any remaining plumbing is done, then the spray foam guys can arrive and get the place insulated so that it can really be kept warm in there for the workers.

Tomorrow I plan to get the materials needed for the cabinets in my office and then plan to spend the week building them. They will be painted so that will be as big a project as building them will be, but it will be nice to finally be getting my fingers dirty in the shop and even better to have the cabinets done and giving me the storage space I really need in my office.

My office cabinets are the warm up for the cabinets in the house and it looks like the timing will work out very well for me to be finishing up the office cabinets and then be able to go over to the house and take measurements for the kitchen and pantry cabinets for their design.

Lots to do, snow or no snow!

Have a great week!

Good Night From the Keweenaw..
–JD

That’s the theme of this winter! Here we are…January 22nd and have only had 7.5″ of snow for the month! We have a darn good chance at breaking the record for least amount of snow for the month of January. That record belongs to the winter of 1967-68 when 27.7″ of snow fell. The forecast for this week doesn’t look to bring more than a few inches and maybe a few more over the weekend. The final 2 days of the month next week do not look to push us past the 27.7″ mark for the month.

So that’s the way this month has gone. I should say that I really cannot complain about November or December much. 28″ fell this November, with 80″ in December. These totals are all coming from the Keweenaw County Road Commission, which measures up by the old radar base in Keweenaw County. So I trust the numbers, which can’t always be said for other numbers reported from up here. Not because I think the other numbers are purposely being fudged, just that I have no way of knowing all the rules are being followed when measuring.

Anyway, there is no new snow shots to share with you for this entry, even though we did get a bit of new snow on Thursday. We picked up around 3″ new, while most of the rest of the Keweenaw were somewhere around 2-3″. The NWS in Negaunee Township was the winner of that storm, I believe, with at least 12.5″. I say at least, because that is what they had reported early in the morning and it did snow more after that. I just did not catch their final totals.

The lack of snow has been favorable for the contractors working on the new house. There was not a whole lot done this week. The trusses were suppose to show up on Tuesday, but were delayed a day. There are 205 trusses in the entire roof package and they all could not fit on one load. The storm that gave us 3″ on Thursday gave northern WI around 6-10″ and the trusses were coming from Hayward, so  the second load did not drive in the storm Thursday and arrived on Friday. One of the workers came out on Friday to be here when the trusses showed up and were unloaded.

The trusses that are to be put up first were on the second load, so he pulled a couple off the stack and measured them and marked them, but he really could not do much more. 

So the main event this past week was to have lots of materials show up, but not a whole lot of work. I’m totally fine with that, as I know this is a great crew and they work very hard when the opportunity calls for it. They are coming out tomorrow with at least 4 guys, maybe more, to start setting the trusses, so with a little luck we could be pretty close to having a roof over the house by the end of this week.

Three of the workers cleared the snow from earlier in the month, but then the rains came around a week ago and froze, so we almost could have strapped on our skates and had some fun on the foundation! There is now around 2″ of snow on top of that ice, which actually makes walking on the foundation a lot safer. It should probably stay that way for the week ahead and once the roof is on, I suppose they might want to shovel the snow out and will have to scrape the ice off where the interior walls go, probably scrape all the ice off, as when the it melts, it would not be too good for the un-treated sill plates for the interior walls. Glad that is all up to them, as I really would not know what to do!!!

Here is a shot of the first load of trusses being delivered and here is a very short video of them sliding off the bed of the trailer. Pretty cool how they have the specialized trailers that can first drop the back to get it close to the ground and in the process lift the front so that the trusses will slide off and third, have rollers in the bed that are locked until they want to skid the trusses off the trailer. Makes a quick job of the process.

I guess that about covers it for this one. Hopefully I will have more to talk about next time. I can’t believe it has been two weeks and not much to talk about!

Good Night From the Keweenaw..
–JD

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the term, but maybe not in the meteorological sense. In that manner, it refers to an area in the tropics, near the equator, where there is little to no wind. Before ships were equipped with engines, those that ventured into this region of the Atlantic or Pacific and become stuck there for many days, even several weeks. Some of them would run out of food and water, causing all aboard to perish.

Our situation here in the upper Midwest is not as life threatening, in fact, it’s just the opposite. The lack of any winter storms in the past several days and in what looks to possibly be the next week or more will allow for good travel and a potential lack of weather related fatalities. There are chances that the Northwoods could see a few inches of snow Wednesday, maybe even a bit of ice in southern MN and central WI, but other models so not see that happening, so I have to use the meteorological cop-out term “potential” with regards to it happening.

Maybe cop-out is too strong of a word, especially when it would be foolish to say that the storm is a for sure or not a for sure. In any case, it has been quiet for several days and looks to stay that way for at least a few more. This pattern we are in is much more like an El Nino one and there is no El Nino occurring. The state of the equatorial Pacific Ocean is much closer to a La Nina, with the temps running a bit cooler than average. The temps have been on the upswing, so perhaps that is what is driving the weather pattern across North America right now.

On the plus side, our temps have been mild enough to keep heating needs lower than average, plus being outside is more tolerable without any bitter cold, but I miss the near daily occurrence of snowflakes in the air. Their last sighting up here was Thursday morning, but it seems like it has been longer than that.

We do have plenty of snow on the ground to recreate in. The mild weather and decent snow pack is very favorable for the downhill and cross country skiers and snow shoers, but snowmobilers will take all the snow they can get, the ice fisherman could use colder temps to make more ice and there is a segment of the downhill skiers who love the fresh powder as much as the snowmobilers.

I am quite confident that we will still see what most would consider a lot of snow to fall yet this season, but I have growing concerns that overall, this will go down as a dud of a winter. Who knows, things can change in a hurry and we could end up with a very snowy end to January, as well as all of February and March. I will keep that though at the front of my thoughts and not focus on the other potentiality. 

The weather was fairly good for the guys building our new home. As mentioned in Tuesdays entry, they showed up on Monday and got the slab cleared of snow and the lumber arrived Tuesday at midday. They got the mudsills down on Wednesday and then began the task of framing and lifting the walls into place  on Thursday and are currently close to halfway done with the exterior walls. Here is a shot of the front of the new house and here is a shot taken from the rear. I suspect that they will be able to finish the framing of the exterior walls this coming week. The trusses are to arrive on the 17th, so with a bit of luck and a big crew from the 17th to the 20th, we may have a roof on!

I’m sure they will be happy to have a roof over their heads and even happier to have it shelled in from the winter. I have to admit that it was quite strange to arrive home the first day they had some walls up and see them standing there. For as long as we have lived here, the backyard of the old house was always empty. Even when the foundation was put in, we really could not see it. I have grown used to seeing the new house there now and am excited to watch the future transformation take place.

That is about all I have to write about for this go-around. Have a wonderful week ahead and I will talk to you next time!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Happy New Year Everyone! I’m a little late this week, but wanted to take New Years Day off like the rest of the world. Yesterday I had to do some snow clearing, which ended up having a few hiccups to it that caused it to take me about twice as long. By the time I finished that, it was not only late, but I was quite tired, so passed on writing. 

After all the wintry weather leading up to the Christmas Holiday, things have quieted down up here. We have had a few light snow events, but nothing major. We also have not had any major thaws, although we did sneak above the 32 degree mark a few times since things warmed up the second half of last week. The forecast does not hold much snow for us either. A storm that has so far brought over a foot of snow to some sections of NE, SD and MN is headed our way, but is growing old in a meteorological sense. Meaning that the typical flow of warm and moist air on the southern and eastern sides and the cold air on the northern and western sides have rotated around the low enough to mix with each other, which has the effect of reducing the temperature contrast that storms feed off of. Another big factor is that the upper air energy to the storm is splitting, with one piece running off to the east, while the other stalls out over the Midwest for a few more days. The loss of the upper air energy is also causing the storm as a whole to weaken.

So we look to see just a few inches of snow from a storm that might otherwise bring us over a foot. There also is no big dump of cold air behind the low, so we will not see any lake effect snow occur in it’s wake. There are times when we might miss out on the heaviest system snow, but make up for it with a solid dose of lake effect. No such luck this time. To further toss salt into the snow lovers wound, the pattern beyond this storm looks unusually quiet for January. No meaningful low pressure systems and the air will remain too warm to produce any lake effect, so we currently look to see less than a few inches of snow fall from Thursday of this week through Thursday or maybe even all of next week.

Needless to say, I am not particularly thrilled about this forecast. I am still a snow lover and actually am gaining back some love for snow that was lost over the past few seasons when I just was not feeling good at all. Plus, moving to the lowest snow area in the entire Keweenaw does not help matters much. We still have around 10″ on the ground, but the big snow areas of the Keweenaw still have around 2 feet.

As anyone who has been following this site and my adventures through life will attest to, I am a glass is half full kind of guy. That’s not to say that I don’t have my moments of feeling negative. I actually have been diagnosed with a form of PTSD from all of my health issues through my life and it has caused me to also be diagnosed with depression. I do take a med that helps with both the PTSD and depression and am getting hooked up with some Dr’s at the Mayo who hopefully will be able to help me even more, but back to the bright side…

The warm up late last week did help un-thaw the chute on Big Red’s snowblower attachment. It was put to use pretty aggressively during the snows leading up to Christmas. In fact, here is a picture of Big Red under the blanket of white Christmas Eve morning. Here is a shot of Nora digging out her vehicle that same morning. Oh how I love mornings like that! Anyway, I went to use Big Red late last week to clear snow from the driveway of some neighbors who were out of town and went to change the direction of the snow being thrown by the blower and the chute would not budge. Normally Big Red gets to sit inside her heated garage in the shop, but because of the evacuation of the old house in anticipation to the move to the new house, her nice warm home is full of house stuff!

So the chute was frozen in the direction to throw the snow to the right. It was not a major issue, more of a nuisance. However, at the time, I was not 100% certain that it was frozen and not a more serious issue being the cause for the reason why it would not pivot. The little warm up did confirm that it was just frozen and so far it has managed to remain unfrozen. I suppose if it happens again, I may try and get just the blower unit into the heated garage or maybe take it to a neighbors garage to thaw out.

Another bright spot to the current weather situation is that we are not dealing with bitter cold. Even at night, temps are dropping only to the mid to upper 20’s. A tradition in the Dee household is to go outside to celebrate the new year. We do not spend all evening out there like folks in other places in the UP, the US or the world. Just the final minute or two of the outgoing year and a minute or so of the new year. The brevity of the time outside is mainly due to the fact that the typical midnight on December 31st brings single digit or even below zero temps. Not this year! It was a balmy 29 degrees and even snowing. So we did spend a little more time outside and Grace even lit off a few fireworks to ring in the new year. 

The third good thing to the weather we are in has more to do with the forecast than previous weather. Outside of the few inches of snow for tonight through Thursday, the quiet weather will be a real help to the builders who appeared yesterday to start working on our new house! They did spend most of the day clearing the snow off the slab foundation and folding up the tarps that sat on top of the foundation since they had poured back in early November. Here is a shot of the state of the build site yesterday evening after they had left for the day. The garage is immediately in the foreground on the right, with the house stretching from the left hand side of the pick to the center of the pic. 

Today they arrived, along with the house…some assembly required! I did not get over there before the sun set today to see what they did, although no walls are standing yet, so I’m guessing they were marking for the mud sills for the exterior walls. Nora and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon down at the builders center picking out things like an entry door, siding, roofing and a few other things. It’s so exciting to have the process started back up and a week earlier than we had thought! I suppose the joy of seeing the guys show up yesterday has kept me from being too upset about the weather situation. It’s going to be so cool to see the walls go up, then the roof and then the interior walls, electrical…etc.

We really are pretty comfortable living in the apartment and feel very fortunate to have it to live in, but I don’t think any of us will miss the 20+ steps needed to get up to the apartment and the single shower for the three of us. I’m looking really forward to silly things like being able to keep my vehicle out of the weather for the first time since we lived in Lake Linden and a nice big shower for two! Of course my commute will get longer and will require boots and a jacket in the wintertime, but those are sacrifices I am willing to make!

I sincerely hope that everyone had a wonderful entry into the new year. I don’t like the look of 2023 as much as 2022 for some silly reason, but I have a gut feeling it is going to be one of the best years the Dee’s have had in a long time! I hope the same for all of you as well! Blessings and…

Good Night From the Keweenaw..
–JD

I don’t watch TV very much at all and when I do, it is usually something streamed from Netfilix or a sporting event, so I have no idea if the storm for the second half of this week is being hyped yet or not, but if not, and it is still in the model runs tomorrow, get ready for ridiculous hype! I’m not going to get into the full details, I’ll save that for the forecast tomorrow, but the models do differ in their timing and placement of the snow. The European Model has the snows arriving around midnight Wednesday night in IA, MN, WI and the UP and explodes the low into an extremely strong and quite massive entity. It would also keep snows flying across the upper Great Lake into Christmas evening. Here is the snowfall outlay it currently has.

The GFS has the snow arriving in IA and S. MN during the day on Thursday and then into IL, the SE 1/2 of WI and much of lower MI overnight Thursday. As you can see from it’s snowfall outlay forecast, the heaviest amounts would be much further south.

I can say that the European picked up on the storm first, but both models have been sticking to their guns as to the track and timing. So I really do not have a reason to side more strongly with than the other, but I know I would LOVE for the European model to verify. 44″ in the 4 days ending Christmas evening. Yea, that would be nice!!! You can see that some areas the model has getting close to 50″ of new snow. The heaviest totals (in the brighter colors) would come the result of lake enhanced system snow as well as pure lake effect. Another think to point out is the fact that the Chicagoland, NW IN and western lower MI are all indicated to get hammered in either idea.

As I almost always say when the models are at odds, it’s a wait and see game and entirely possible that neither solution will pan out. However, I do think the odds on the storm happening in one shape or another is pretty good. So it will be all eyes on deck tomorrow morning and then all hands on deck once we know where the storm is going to hit worst! I just love when the weather is in this predicament, I don’t get all buggered up about hurricanes or tornados, but a nice big old winter time mid-latitude cyclone (winter storm) really gets my blood pumping! It’s why I became a meteorologist!

Believe it or not, I don’t have too much more to say. We got missed like you would not believe by the storm that impacted so much of the rest of the northern Midwest. It did not come as a surprise to me, but other forecasts were very ambitious with the snows for the Keweenaw and had the whole town thinking that schools would be closed and travel difficult, etc. It was almost as if there was a wall circling us. The first wave of heavy snow came up from the north and was taking aim on us, but then curved to the west and pounded NW WI and northern MN. The second fell apart before it got to us and the final wrap up to the storm had us in its eye, with snowbands spinning like a merry go-round. We did get into some lake effect Saturday and Saturday night, with a general 3-6″ falling in most areas and Jake picking up around 2.

The storm did generate some very strong winds, which got the big lake all riled up. It’s hard to tell from the pictures, but the biggest sets contained waves that were around 8-10 feet tall. About the biggest I have seen down here since we moved here. It was cool to watch them smash into the sandstone cliffs and then bounce back and smash into each other. The lighthouse also looked cool, standing there in defiance of all the nasty conditions going on around it.

We are still without our high speed internet. The good news is that two smaller adapters have come already and the main unit is on its way. It should be here by late tomorrow or late Tuesday. I say late because our FedEx delivery guy does not usually show up until around 6-8pm. Once the new satellite and receiver arrive, then the Snow Church videos can resume and I will have a live streaming AlCam!

I am very glad that the new system is on it’s way and will be here soon. I have just about burned up my 50 mb of hotspot data! Grace ate hers up in just one night gaming, poor girl did not even know she was doing that. Nora phone has also been depleted of her hotspot data. I can say that if my hotspot data is all used up before the dish is here, I will go to a place with free wifi to do my forecasts. No way I am going to be missing with a possible monster bearing down!

Seems hard to believe that in just one week, Christmas will be in its final hours and in two weeks it will be the new year! I think the lack of snow up here seems to make it feel more like early December than the second half. As I always say, things can, and usually do, change in a hurry up here when it comes to snowcover!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
-JD