It’s never good to have to write abound rain on the Birkie Trail. But unlike some other rainy years (well, really just one) there’s really not too much to worry about the current rainstorm headed to Hayward.

The details: it’s going to rain. The Birkie Trail has not received much in the way of precipitation in the past month, so there’s a deep, but old, snowpack for the rain to fall onto. The good news? The temperature during this rain event will only be in the mid-30s to low 40s, so what falls will not eat into and melt too much snow. It’s not optimal, but as far as a major rainstorm 10 days before race day it’s about as good an outcome as we can expect (for instance, the National Weather Service doesn’t have any flood advisories, so they’re not expecting a significant meltdown). Still, there may be some minor flooding and ponding at low spots on the trail, which would require a bit of time to drain off. If you’re skiing this weekend expect old, frozen snow.

What happens then? It appears to get colder. 

For the period covering Birkie week, there will be below normal temperatures for the western half of the country, with Northwest Wisconsin in the cold side. The weather service says that after the potential for some light snow this weekend, “Looking further ahead, ensemble climate guidance suggests a below normal temperature period mid next week, with a slight risk for much below normal temperatures Feb 22-24 across the region.” There are some storms which may slide through the region as well, so there is the possibility for new snow before the race.

In a couple of days we will be within 240 hours of the race, meaning that the US, Canadian and European models will all be giving us updates every 6 or 12 hours about race day temperatures and weather. Currently I’d bet on a colder-than-average race, potentially with start temperatures around 0 and only warming into the teens, not the 30s we’ve enjoyed for the past couple of Main Street finishes. But no big warm ups on the horizon, so I won’t complain too much.

[sponsored-ish / public service post]

Are you still looking for a place for you and some friends for the Birkie? A reader with a house to rent and a last-minute cancelation asked if I took advertisements and I said “I do now!”

The house is huge, sleeps up to 22 people, and located 10 minutes from Downtown Hayward out by Round Lake. You can book at AirBNB or VRBO, of course, or use the “contact us” link on their website to save on booking fees. If you are interested please let them know you found out about it on BirkieGuide.com!

It’s 50˚ in Cable.

Please don’t panic. Too much.

There’s plenty of snow in Birkieland and warm, dry, calm weather won’t do much to it. Four main factors determine snowmelt: temperature, sun, wind and humidity. A day like today has two of them, but the dry air should inhibit some melting and without a strong breeze the cold snow should keep the air at the surface cold as well. Here are a couple of explainers about this process.

With a bit more than two weeks before the race, it would be disconcerting if it was going to be 50˚ and sunny every day before the race (and that might be high; Hayward airport is only reporting 44˚). It is also dropping into the 20s or colder overnight; it was 13˚ last night in Hayward,  meaning the snowpack further down will stay cold. Plus, the groomed Birkie Trail is compacted enough that it takes a lot to actually melt the already-groomed snow.

It’s possible that in some cases, the south-facing hills could begin to get a bit thin, but the Birkie can probably move snow there if needed. Another concern would be high flows in the Namekagon thinning out the lake, but days like today if the surface melts, it won’t have time to percolate through the snowpack and feed streams and rivers before refreezing (or evaporating, or sublimating). So don’t get too concerned. Yet.

Longer-term forecasts show more bend-but-don’t-break weather for Birkieland. Mostly dry and warmer than average, but only into the 30s during the day most days, with colder nights. Unless a major rainstorm or a real spell of hot weather shows up—neither appears in the forecast—Birkie weather watches should be able to breathe rather easily. For now.

New year, new updates to the Unofficial Guide. No major changes but some updates, and fleshing out some thoughts about feeds and hydration especially.

The Guide will be updated as needed, especially with trail closure information as we get closer to the race, although with the deep base this year, trail closures may not be as drastic as some recent years.

Also, a new podcast just dropped, stay tuned for more!

The weather headline this winter has been the rain in California. A month of rain has added water to reservoirs, snow to the mountains, and mud to places it is not supposed to be. But what happens in California doesn’t necessarily stay in California, and the atmospheric river pushing into California has resulted in some interesting weather in the Midwest: wet and warm.

Notably, the City of Lakes Loppet’s Luminary event has been pushed back, because the heavy, wet snow and lack of cold air has kept the lakes from freezing as solid as they usually do (whether the City of Lakes Loppet will be able to cross the lakes in a few weeks is still an open question). Closer to home, the Birkie needs to cross the final two miles of Lake Hayward to reach Main Street, and if the ice is thin, the race can not fully take place. The race has been shortened to OO twice (2007 and 2017), but several more times it has not crossed the lake, including four times between 1983 and 1991.

Most of these years have been due to a lack of snow on the latter portion of the course, with races ending (or, in some cases, starting, since the course changed direction in those days) at Duffy’s or Rosie’s field. In most of those cases, the winters were warm and dry, and a warmup later in the season led to a lack of snow. 1983 had more snow, but a warm February appears to have affected ice on the lake, which may never have thickened below a thick blanket of snow.

In recent memory (the past 25 years), there have been five cancelations:

• 1998: A warm February leads to a short course.
• 2000: A warm and rainy end of the month cancels the race
• 2002: A warm, dry month ends with enough rain to shorten the race
• 2007: A couple of warm days and low snowfall creates the half-length open-track rock ski race
• 2017: A warm spell and rain cancel the race

Since the first Birkie, San Francisco has gone over 30 inches of rain in 1973, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1997 and 2017. Of these, six years, three correlate to some sort of Birkie disruption. So there appears to be some correlation between heavy rain in the Pacific and Birkie disruptions. In this year’s case, the warm Pacific air has led to plentiful snow in the Northwoods with warm temperatures. And while snow is good, we’ve had perfectly good Birkies in years like 2012 and 2015 with lower snowfall.

What do I take from this, reading tea leaves a few weeks from the race? Right now, cold is more important than snow. The dense snowpack should be able to withstand all but the worst meltdown. More snow? Sure. But it would be better to freeze up the base and freeze up the lake rather than having to worry about snowmelt and ice. At least the current outlooks call for some colder weather building across the country (less of a polar vortex outbreak and more of a lasting cold) which might be enough to push through the lake snow cover and freeze things down.

Do you want to see yourself finish the Birkie but you don’t want to scroll through 8 hours of video?

Well Don Smith of MadNorSki has you covered. Just click here, enter your bib, et voila! the video will start when you cross the line (or just before).

Nice job Don!

Do you read this website? Do you listen to its sister podcast? If the answer to either of these is “yes” (and you’re here, so it is “yes” to at least one) I would very much appreciate a few minutes of your time to find out a bit more about who you are with a short survey. It should only take a few minutes (3-5, with an option to give a bit more information for a couple of more minutes) and it will help cater additional content to the user base.

Thanks!

Some of us went out and skied the North End Trails which just so happen to coincide with the Birkie Trail for a few meters here and there.

The North End Trails, with one roll and pass, are soft and slow.

The Birkie Trail, however, looks great. They’ve plowed a lot of the snow off and tilled everything else in. It has been regroomed since the open track this morning and set up well, and that’s before a nice cold evening. And it will certainly get at least one more groom and till before the Birkie, maybe more. I would assume the Birkie will focus on the Kortelopet course this evening and then maybe go hit the Birkie early in the morning when it’s down around zero.

Anyway, as usual, the Birkie knows how to groom and has the equipment to do it. The course will be solid, and pretty fast. It’s going to be a good Birkie.

Cowbell Fever podcast listeners probably know Jess Marion, one of the Elite Wave Marion Sisters and a top-20 Birkie finisher in 2020. Jess is a teacher and ski coach, and this year the Maine State Ski Meet was the Wednesday and Thursday before the Birkie. No big deal, her husband would fly out with skis on Thursday, and she’d take a flight Friday morning out of Boston and arrive to dinner and freshly-waxed skis for the Birkie Saturday.

But remember that the Unofficial Guide suggests arriving early, because for long-distance travelers, anything can happen. And in Jess’s case, that anything is a foot of snow falling on Friday between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. in the northeast. So Jess had a backup plan: she kept her original Delta flight on Friday morning but the JetBlue flight was sold out. Delta has canceled its first two flights out of BOS on Friday, with no guarantee the later flights will make the trip and if they do, they may be quite delayed.

So, as Jess stood coaching on frozen slush with lousy cell reception, her husband was airborne on his way out, and I was in a car. But I love to play amateur travel agent, so I got to work. What about an early flight out of Bangor on Friday; the snow won’t hit there until 8 a.m., although it’s a long drive and would strand a car hours from her home. Another option was going to be to outfly the weather tonight. New York is getting hit, but DC and Detroit aren’t. Nothing to Detroit, but American does have a late flight from Portland to DC. With seats available. Ding ding ding! Jess: book this, fly to DC, overnight there, and then take your pick of flights to Minneapolis on Friday. Don’t worry about money, this is the Birkie we’re talking about. (As another skier friend of mine says, “this is a problem that can be solved with money.) Sure it may be hectic, but for the Birkie, you have to make sacrifices.

Not exactly what you want to see on a tight Birkie schedule.

Watch out for Jess, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if she channels this into a stellar performance on Saturday.

It’s Thursday morning, the sun is rising, and I’m pretty glad that we’re not skiing the Birkie today. The Birkie start area, at 7 a.m., is reporting -20˚. Skiing at -20˚ can be fun, maybe, but standing around at the start waiting to start skiing at -20˚ is almost definitely not fun. But the Birkie events are all later today, and temperatures should reach well above 0˚ today by the time the Hayward events take place. And -20 should freeze the Birkie trail up well.

So let’s get to the details:

Thursday evening may feature some snow in Hayward, but most of the precipitation will stay south of US 8. For those driving later on Thursday from the Twin Cities or through the southern two-thirds of Wisconsin, expect some snow. It won’t be heavy, but 1-3″ of snow from Chicago north to Eau Clare and the Cities is likely.

Friday for the Kortelopet should be cold to start (but not as cold; around 0), but sunny, not very windy, and should warm to about 20˚ by afternoon, so a decent day for spectators and skiers. Reports from Duluth, which has similar snow to the Birkie, is that it is reasonably fast, so it shouldn’t be sandpapery, although the new snow and cold weather may affect this if it isn’t fully groomed in. Hourly temperatures (from the NAM 3k model):

9 a.m.: 7˚
10 a.m.: 11˚
11 a.m.: 14˚
12 noon: 16˚
1 p.m.: 18˚
2 p.m.: 20˚
3 p.m.: 20˚

Saturday for the Birkie will be warmer still, and breezier. We’ve seen this weather before and it’s really quite nice.

7 a.m.: 5˚
8 a.m.: 9˚
9 a.m.: 14˚
10 a.m.: 21˚
11 a.m.: 25˚
12 noon: 29˚

With an afternoon high (the model only runs to 60 hours) from other models around 32 or 33. However, the Canadian model is not quite as warm, with temperatures in the upper 20s. In any case, it should be sunny and breezy, with the winds kicking up as the day goes on and most skiers will face a headwind on portions of the course heading southwest, and out in the open, so especially down Sunset hill and across the Lake. That said, it won’t be a cold wind, so it’s not a bad tradeoff for, you know, not starting at 20˚.

And it should be a lovely afternoon in Hayward, back for the first time since 2020.