By Joe Crain
The abnormally warm and dry winter here in the Lake Nebagamon area has carried over into our early spring. That is, our meteorological spring, but unfortunately, not our actual calendar spring. Yes, the modern world has two “springs”. Meteorological spring starts on March first, whereas astronomical spring on the calendar spring hit this year on March 19th (Spring Equinox) — at least according to the calendar on my wall. I myself have never really accepted the meteorological March 1st date because as a longtime resident of the Northwoods of Wisconsin I have first-hand knowledge of how harsh and winter like the first half of March can be, and almost always is. Interestingly, it is almost always not until around the third week of the month that the weather turns to anything resembling spring, which unsurprisingly is right about the time of the equinox. I only bring this fact up because of the odd March weather we have experienced this year, the weather ended up coming to us backwards! This year we had almost unbelievably beautiful weather for the first three weeks of the month. As a matter of fact, we broke several high temperature records in those three weeks reaching well into the 60s on several days. The thin ice cover on the lake and all of the warm weather also broke the record for the earliest ice off ever recorded. The majority of the lake was ice free on the 12th and all of the lake was clear by the morning of the 13th, about a month earlier than average. With the total lack of snow on the ground and the lake ice free it seemed like this year the meteorologists had it right. It was so nice that we were even able to get out of the shop and get started on some outdoor work.
It was smooth and sunny sailing, right through the start astronomical spring… and then things flipped. The temperatures dropped below average and the weatherman started hinting around about a storm coming our way from the west that had potential to be the biggest snow event of our anemic winter. The biggest storm of the season so far had only delivered about four inches of snow, so it wasn’t going to take a whopper to clear that bar. Well a whopper is what we got! It came six days after calendar spring began on the 19th. The storm started on the evening of Sunday the 24th and lasted until the afternoon on Wednesday the 27th. The storm dumped 14 inches of snow on us here in Lake Nebagamon and some places up in the Duluth area received 21 inches over those four days! So oddly we received more snow in those four days of spring then we had gotten for the whole actual winter, and those areas that got the 21 inches up in Duluth surpassed the whole winter total for them by about four inches! If nothing else, this winter sure has been a record-smasher. The other thing this winter has been is very confusing to my feet. When I should have been putting skis on, I was lacing up my hiking boots and when the time came for me to be putting the hiking boots on, I was buckling into my skis. I know if my feet had hands they would be throwing them up in disgust!
Spending a lot of time lately wondering who will be seated in the two most important Camp Nebagamon related jobs: the future Camp Director and the future owners of the Lake Nebagamon Dairy Queen, it’s Caretaker Joe At Camp.
