It’s going to be warm in the next week. Real warm. Mid-40s warm. If there was two feet of base, it would be less of a concern, but snowfall has been somewhat low this year in the Northwoods, and this is the kind of heat which could burn down some south-facing hills to grass. Grass is not good for skiing.

Right now, depending on which model you trust, we’re looking at four or five days in the 40s, potentially topping 50˚ on one or two. The saving grace may be that it won’t rain, which can quickly erode the base: dew points should stay low enough that snow loss will be mostly by sublimation, and the base and ground may keep too much from melting. (It also minimizes runoff which could make the ice on Lake Hayward unsafe.) The other possibility is that various models have hinted at a snow storm at the end of this warm period the Thursday or Friday before the Birkie, which would freshen up any base there*. But we don’t want to rely on hoping for a snowstorm a week out.

(* Namely, the last three runs of the GFS model have shown this, as have two runs of the ECMWF, but it’s a close call. The midday GFS today, for instance, shows a foot of snow falling on Hayward, but with the rain-snow line in about Trego. There’s not much margin for error there! Still, I’d buy what the 12Z GFS is selling: 8-16″ of snow starting on Thursday evening in to Friday, starting wet and heavy but finishing cold and powdery, with race temperatures on new snow in the teens. Notably, the ECMWF matches this, and the Canadian model is similar, albeit a day late.)

There’s also significantly more snow on the northern half of the trail than the southern half, and it’s possible that the trail will be skiable north of OO and not to the south. The new Classic trail gives the option of turning the race back at OO and finishing it in Cable, although this would be operationally difficult, it may be an option. We’d certainly miss out on the Hayward finish, but if it’s not skiable and the ice isn’t safe.

We’ve had a good run of Birkies: the last time there was this much uncertainty for the Birkie was in 2007. We may have that sort of issue: enough snow north of OO, and not south. Or we may have an 2012 scenario: dry ground in Spooner, but perfect conditions on the trail. It’s wait and see time, though, and hopefully we’ll be skiing down Main Street in 10 days.

No news is not good news. No news is me not posting.

I’ll keep it short: it’s going to get warm in Wisconsin next week. Maybe in to the 50s. Maybe some rain. It should cool down by the Birkie, but the base is going to get hit hard. The lake might as well. Cross your fingers it doesn’t. But it doesn’t look very promising right now.

The past couple of post have been a bit vague about how bad the threat of a huge warm-up looked, because I wanted to hedge my bets and not be a huge Debbie Downer. And, as often happens in long range weather speculation (there’s a reason I don’t say “forecast” here), things have changed. Luckily for the better (also known as “reverting to the mean”). Now that the threat seems to be ebbing, here’s what I saw, what I’m seeing, and what it might mean.

Here’s what we saw about a week ago. This was the four week extended model at that point showed a large positive temperature anomaly stretched across the continent: the kind of temperatures which would lead to 40˚ temperatures in the northwoods which could eat away at the base. (See the map at right.) The weather models didn’t look much better, with temperatures looking to take a week-long ride above freezing.

This persisted for a few days, but recent maps have looked a lot better. We’re still looking at some positive temperature anomalies, but not to the same extent. The shorter-range models do show some warming temperatures this week and next, but staying in the 30s, with little liquid precipitation and the chance for some snow. And the week of the Birkie itself looks cooler, so we shouldn’t have a repeat of last year.

All this, of course, can and will change. There’s very little skill predicting the temperature out beyond a few days, and anything past a week is generally just looking at trends. Still, I’d much rather have trends point to normal temperatures than way above.

Last week, we wrote about how the long-range weather forecast for the Birkie was sub-optimal. Since then, it hasn’t gotten much better, but it hasn’t gotten any worse, and there are some glimmers of hope. Looking out 10 to 16 days on the models is always a dangerous exercise, and we should look only at bigger picture trends, not specific events. The US model, which goes out to 16 days, is promising. The last few runs have dampened the western ridge somewhat, and kept Wisconsin on the eastern fringe of it, keeping temperatures from skyrocketing in to the 40s. The European Model out to 10 days mostly does the same. The US model even shows some additional snowfall before race day. It’s still a low-confidence forecast, and there’s plenty which could go awry, but for now decent snow conditions appear possible.

Less than three weeks to go!

It’s February, so it’s time for some early Weather Speculation posts on BirkieGuide.com. Last year, you may remember that it was warm for the Birkie. There was plenty of snow, but the race took place in the middle of a thaw, leading to somewhat sloppy conditions. This year, a similar pattern is setting up, but it might come earlier, and the race may be cooler, but since it’s more than three weeks away, there’s not that much that we know.

Right now, snow depth in Birkieland is about a foot. It’s a good base, but it’s far less than we’d like at this juncture. That may change, soon, for the better. All signs point to a potent storm affecting the Upper Midwest in the middle of next week. The question is exactly where it will produce snow, and how much (actually, that’s always the question). Right now, models range from a few inches to upwards of a foot. A foot of new snow would go a long way towards calming the nerves of some Birkie skiers.

Then things get … interesting. There’s extreme, unprecedented heat in the arctic this year and weather patterns are not relatively well behaved. Several models—the US model in particular—have been toying with a huge ridge building over the western two-thirds of the country in the third week of February. This could bring a prolonged period of well above-normal temperatures to the Upper Midwest. This is still well out in the future, although the longer range outlooks are not pretty.

Having said that, there’s a lot that could mitigate this. First, it’s more than 10 days out on the models, what meteorologists sometimes call “clown range.” Second, it looks relatively dry, which could mean above-freezing days, but below-freezing nights, which would at least mitigate snow loss. Third, it appears that the heat may break before the Birkie, so if the snow lasts, the race could go off in more suitable conditions (i.e., no water skiing on the lake). Fourth, the axis of the ridge has been wavering east and west recently on the models. Some runs, it winds up centered over the Upper Midwest, and in others, it shows up much further west, over the Rockies, with colder air in place over Wisconsin.

So there’s a lot to watch. I wouldn’t get too worried yet, but if it doesn’t snow next week and the warm air pushes in, we may have a problem.