Monthly Archives: January 2019

Weather Speculation: Can we get through next week?

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The weeklies still look good. But after near-all-time-record cold (-56 in Minnesota, only -33 in Hayward) temperatures will moderate nearly 100 degrees in the next week. By the end of the weekend, it will be pushing towards 40 in Hayward. 40 is fine. 40 and rain is … less fine. Sunday and Monday are still out, it could be 40 and dry, and then cool down and snow a bit. That would be fine. The snowpack and ground will be so cold that a little warmth probably won’t penetrate the snowpack without significant wind. A tiny bit of 35˚ rain is probably fine. 40 and pouring is not so good. So hope for the best, since if we can get over this hump things look better for a while. If it’s bad, though, at least there’s some time before race day.

If nothing else, the cold snap has probably put another few inches of ice on Lake Hayward.

Four weeks out preliminary weather speculation

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Four weeks to the Birkie!

I, for one, am going on a long ski this weekend. A long march, you could say. Yes, I’m in Italy, skiing the Marcialonga (expect a podcast shortly). But it’s just a long training race (for me): the main event is in four weeks in Wisconsin.

So what does the weather foretell? First, there’s snow, but not that much. Probably enough now, but not enough to survive much of a meltdown. The next week holds some promise, with the potential for a few inches of snow on Monday and no chance of a meltdown thereafter. If nothing else, it will put down some thick ice on Lake Hayward.

After that … the long range trends look good. The US models out for the next four weeks show Hayward in colder-than-normal temperatures throughout the forecast period. Obviously there’s not a lot of “skill” in this forecast, so things can change; and near the end there’s warm air lurking up north, but for the next couple of weeks things look okay. As for some moisture, it doesn’t look wet, but not bone-dry; a few inches of snow in the cold will help.

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But, monthly forecasts can be wrong. At this juncture in 2017, things looked okay, but then went way, way downhill in the week after. So there’s a lot of time to come until we’re lining up next to an airport in Cable, Wisconsin. A lot can happen. But things aren’t dire, yet.