By Joe Crain
It’s been a tough spring for us here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, due to the fact that we can’t quite seem to shake off Old Man Winter! We started April with about 14 inches of snow still on the ground steadily melting off for the first week of the month. It’s not good to be starting April with that much snow, but it seemed to be on its way out despite our lower-than-average daily temps. Our temperatures early in April should be in the lower 40s, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, and the mid-to-upper-30ss were doing the job. Soon though, an unpleasant cycle set in and for the next three weeks in a row we were beset by a mid-week temperature plummet and a mid-week snow storm. Storm one deposited six inches on the 7th through the 8th, and our nine remaining inches of snow turned to 15”. Fortunately, things swung warm that weekend and we lost all of those fresh six inches by the end of the weekend. But before we could get the snow shovels back into the garage the weather man told us we had better keep them out; April snow round two was on the way and could be bigger than round one! Sure enough, all of our snow-loss gains were wiped out yet again as eight inches fell for the second storm of the month. Thankfully, it turned to rain mid-week and most of that snow was beat down to a meager six inches when storm number two passed. Well round three was looming in the forecast before round two let up and the next week we saw another four inches of the dreaded heavy wet spring snow fall from the sky! Just over 19 inches of snow fell the first 19 days of April.
I started to tell every one of the few people that listen to me that this wasn’t April but rather Decempril! (We live in the age of the mash-up after all.) I also made a big push to remind folks we had it a lot worse back in the spring of 2013 when that Decempril brought us the still-record snow fall of 54 inches! Well, thankfully, as was pointed out the other day by a local meteorologist, the silver lining is that although we may be 10-15 degrees below our average temps each morning, as the month progresses those averages ARE going up each day. So, the below average this week is warmer than below average last week. Hmmm, not much consolation… but I guess one has to take what one can. So here we sit on Decempril 28th and the snow has gradually receded to just the big piles in the shady spots. Yes, some of those piles are four feet tall and 10 feet around but I’m seeing a lot of brown grass in my yard and the daffodils have started to show their green tips. And the best part is that in the last week of April, we only had a half inch that melted as soon as this week’s sunshine hit, so reason for optimism, right? Unfortunately, any of you who had dates before May in the C/N Lake Nebagamon Ice Breaker contest are out of luck! 99% of the lake is still covered in ice. With the past three twenty-degree mornings and highs only reaching into the lower 40s, I am starting to think there’s a possibility that May 7th’s Wisconsin fishing opener may have to be an ice fishing event this year!
Hoping that Old Man winter will finally throw in the towel for the year, because a Janumay mash up doesn’t roll of the tongue quite as well as Decempril does, it’s Caretaker Joe At Camp.
