Winter storm, now blizzard, Elsa, was a historic storm. It set snowfall records in quite a few places. Supposedly Mountain set a state record for two day snowfall with 34”. I am quite sure that I matched or exceeded that. Most of my measurements were over 33 and many were in the 36” range.

It was indeed a blizzard. There were several stretches where visibility was under 100′ and several 3 hour stretches where I could not see ¼ mile.

The county and town plow crews are doing the best that they can. This was not a snow that they can just breeze by at 40mph and clear all county roads in a day. Not only was the snow deep and the road hard to find, the visibility was nearly impossible. Additionally as soon as they would plow the high winds would fill the road back in, especially on east-west roads.

To make things even more interesting gravel roads and driveways had the frost coming out of the ground, so somehow plow trucks had to push the heavy snow and not get stuck in the mud.

My neighbor Mike Decker ( Decker Services) cleared my driveway out yesterday saving me about 2 days work with the snowblower.

The house that I am remodeling to sell must have had a clogged furnace vent. During the storm the cameras showed that the temperature dropped into the high 40s when I usually keep it at 60. I was powerless to do anything about it with 3′ of snow in both driveways and the 8 miles of road in between. With the really strong winds yesterday the vent must have cleared because the temperature came back up to 60. I will be over there today hammering through the plow pile to see what was going on.

I was ridiculously ready for this storm but I still got surprised. I was ready with 4 days of generator gas, two whole house portable generators that were test run the day of, plenty of cigs, whiskey and beer, gas in the car, plentiful food, and multiple ways to access the internet.

The surprises were that I did not expect my typical generator spot to turn into a 3′ snowdrift. I will definitely need to work on that. I also didn’t expect the power to stay on. I guess that my car runs on premium this week.

The meltdown of this storm is going to get interesting. We are only going into the 40s for high temperatures in the near term so it will be a slow melt in sheltered areas. In sunny areas we will probably see bare ground by the weekend. The late March sun is brutal on snow. In sheltered areas the freeze-thaw-freeze cycle will likely turn the snow into an ice layer. Some traces of that ice layer will last well into May.

The snowmobile trails are not going to open. It is strange to see that with three feet of snow on the ground and a short season. There are probably a lot of reasons for that. I don’t know what they are so I will speculate-

The swamps are thawed and flooded. The woods will be a mess with the high winds bringing down trees and branches. The ground under the trail is thawed out and muddy. By the time the crews cleared the woods and broke a trail the sun would do its evil and burn off the snow on the sunny parts of the system.

I really don’t know. Again that is just my speculation.

Personally I don’t have time to deal with snowmobiling right now. I have a lot of snow to move before it turns to ice.

At the end of the story we made history the last few days. I’d rather make history by eating 37 chicken wings in 5 minutes but it wasn’t an A or B choice. Now it is time to do what we always do.. dig our way out, help our neighbors, and continue to live with a whole new batch of stories to tell.

Thank you for visiting!

RJB

The snow has mostly moved out but now we have some big winds. Some of the gusts are easily 50mph and they are moving a LOT of blowing snow.
Here is the update that I posted to Facebook.

11:30am

We had a little break and then the second wave came. As of 10:45 it is still vigorously snowing and blowing. According to the NWS we have 22mph winds gusting to 37.  According to the future radar it will finally stop snowing about 2 or 3pm after we get another 3-5″.

An observation- It is really hard to tell the difference between 28″ of snow and 35″ of snow when the wind is howling at 40+.

I just took this a few minutes ago.

and I took this one yesterday..

My neighbor just came over with a big farm tractor and snowblower and saved me about two days of work.

Here is what the SxS picture looks like now.

He is genuinely heaven sent. The house that I am remodeling on the other side of town had the furnace go down last night. I was sitting here helpless as I watched the temp fall on the cameras. Now I have a fighting chance of getting there before it freezes. Thank you Mike!!!

1:15am

We had a little break for a few hours and here we are again snowing and blowing. The first lap brought somewhere between 24 and 30″.

I am estimating that I have close to 30″ based on the truck tires and how high it is on the 55 gallon drum burning barrel.

The NWS says that we could get 6-12″ more snow tonight along with some strong 45-50 mph winds. At 12:30 am it is snowing and blowing and the wind seems stronger.

The first round of heavy snow was waves of precip moving along the front. The second round is the actual low pressure area passing by us. That will bring extra wind.

The power has gone out here twice but it turned back on in a few seconds. When I looked at the WPS outage map they only had 50 outages with over half of them in Green Bay or Door County.

I have not even tried to clean any of it up. I’ve seen that cartoon before.. clean a big hole in the driveway and 3 hours later it is drifted shut. Hard pass on that one. I will wait until tomorrow.

It is going to take people a while to dig out of this one. The Town of Stephenson did plow the road, though that was a while ago. I am not looking forward to the pile at the end of the driveway.

This is going to be extra fun for snowplow guys doing gravel driveways and roads with the ground soft and muddy under 3′ of snow.

I don’t know what the scoop will be with trails opening. It would be a strange set of circumstances where you have three feet of snow on the ground and no trails.

That’s it for tonight. I will up date later in the morning.

RJB

6pm

The snow has stopped for the most part. Now it is blowing and drifting.
It looks like we will get a break before the back of the storm brings more snow. The NWS has us for 3-7 tonight and 3-5 tomorrow. In both cases we are looking at winds gusting to almost 50. That should build some nice drifts.

I’m not even going to try to clean up until tomorrow.

4:45pm

I went out and measured around a little. My numbers ranged from 20-30”. I see a drift outside of my window that is easily 3 feet.

The snow has slowed way down but it is still snowing lightly. The wind is still strong and blowing snow all over.

Happily the lights are still on. There are not many power disruptions in our area at all. Over the past few years they have moved the electrical service underground and that is really paying off today. I’m happy about it because my generator spot that I carved out yesterday is a 3 foot deep drift.

Here are some pictures.

I looked it up and the top of the tires on the trucks is at  30”. For now that is my yardstick.

Here are some pictures from other people on Facebook.

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I am off to take a long winter nap, possibly hibernation until June. I busted my butt the last two days getting ready and now it is time to rest.

RJB

11:30am

I just woke up so I haven’t been outside to measure yet. Looking out the window at the front step I’d call it somewhere around 18″. The snow is coming hot and heavy and even without the wind I can only see about 100′. This is already a history making storm.

The snow is very fine and when the gusty winds start blowing it around at 50mph it is going to get really crazy.

Yesterday 18-24″ possibly going 30 sounded a little silly. It isn’t silly any more, we are most of the way there already. In the meantime here is a security cam image of my car. Yowza! Check out the truck on the right. That is a lifted 4×4 and it is up to the bumper.

Here is a picture of my little Yardsport side by side. Probably won’t be taking that out today.

I will be back later with more pictures.

7am

The snow started about midnight with gently falling snow. As of 7am there is about 4″ down. Earlier this morning we had a little bit of a break with a dry slot but now the heavier snow is is starting to move in.

The forecast remains the same- 24-30″ of snow, 50mph winds, blizzard conditions.

We are just getting started.

RJB