By Joe Crain
I always have to laugh when Groundhog Day comes around every February 2nd, and not just because the idea that the behavior of a rather large, odd-looking rodent could predict future weather events is so absurd! No, I laugh because when your address is this far north in Wisconsin, no matter what a particular groundhog says, be it Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania, Buckeye Chuck in Ohio, Shubenacadie Sam out of Nova Scotia, or even Wisconsin’s own Jimmy, who dose his weather predicting from a burrow in the town of Sun Prairie, no matter the name of the short fury prognosticator, we will be having six more weeks of winter here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin!! It would be more appropriate here to have Groundhog Day on March 2nd, and the question the too beloved rodent should be answering for us is whether the weather will keep snow on the ground until late March or early April?
It was looking for most of February that there was little chance for our paltry snow pack of just 13 inches to last through March. With the temperature reaching near the freezing mark on both January 31st as well as February 1st, it looked as though we might indeed be headed for an early spring after all. But the very next day, Groundhog Day, the mercury went into a dramatic slide toward the negative that didn’t stop until the thermometer read minus-15 degrees! On that special day for rodent climatologists, the temperature only made it to the 5-degree mark and that night things got down right chilly when the mercury didn’t stop falling until it hit -24 degrees. Hopefully all our local rodents were comfortably deep in the torpor of hibernation down in their burrows and were spared the risk of frost bite. From there, the month went on a rather erratic pattern of above average temps followed by a below average patch followed by another couple days of above average. All of this up and down made for a couple of interesting high to low swings:
As I mentioned above there was the 45-degree downward swing from Feb. 1st to Feb. 2nd.- On the 7th we had an upward swing of 29 degrees from a low of 3 degrees to a high of 32 degrees on the 8th.
- Again, a major downward fall from a high of 34 degrees on the 11th to a low of -18 on the 12th, a 52-degree plunge!
- Next, an upward surge of 45 degrees from the low on the 17th of -22 to a high of 23 degrees on the 18th which then promptly sank 49 degrees to a low of -26 that night.
- The following day, the 19th was again up 45 degrees to a high of 19 which again fell to -13 through the night, a 32-degree fall
- And we’re not done yet! This little temperature roller coaster ride had one upward swing left: a 50 degree climb to an astonishing 37-degree high on the 20th of February!
Well, if all of that up and down wasn’t unsettling enough, the month was well behind in snow deposits with nothing falling from the sky in depths of more than ½ an inch. It was looking like the snow depth of 13 inches on the ground at the start of the month was going to hold steady all the way to March. That thinking came to an end on the 20th when the forecasters started to hint at a big storm headed our way, with as much as 10 inches of accumulation! Human prognosticators soon began adding to the predicted snowfall, and we were told we were in for a 2-day snow storm that would come in 2 waves with a potential snow fall of 12 or more inches. The reality of the storm was much bigger than the early hype for a change, and the storm was a 2-day rager with continuous snow fall and howling winds that topped out with 65-mile-an-hour gusts. The storm got so bad that on the 2nd day, which ironically was 2/22/22, we were forced to do something at camp that we haven’t done in years now: we called a snow day and stayed home from work to hunker down and watch the wind driven blizzard unfold from the comfort of home. Well, the snow fell pretty much nonstop for about 48 hours and left between 18-20 inches in the Lake Nebagamon area and a whopping 27 inches for our friends over in the Ashland/Bayfield area. So, we are exiting February with over 30 inches of snow on the ground! I think we could be skiing through all of March this year, but you just never know what the weather will bring when you live this far north in the Great Northwoods of Wisconsin!
I’ll be spending the coming days watching for the true Weather Prognosticating Rodent of the Northland, Chet the Chipmunk! Because if you spot Chet out of his burrow for more than two days in a row then there will be no more snow, or at least that’s how Chester, Chet’s handler wants to sell it.
Looking forward to seeing Chet’s little face scampering about the grounds, it’s Caretaker Joe At Camp.
Caretaker Andy clears snow off of the Three Car Garage