Behind the Boats

Water levels are coming down, more sandbars everyday, and the long range forecast looks amazing. This coming 4th of July weekend seems to have everything going for it!

======================================= Final update for the weekend – I was feeling real good about the drop in water levels until I noticed the Lemonweir River running over 2kcfs. That was a big surprise whereas the Baraboo River is the next tributary…

Water levels are currently still high enough to cover most sandbars and overnight trips are on hold through Thursday. Day trips are still good to go and feedback about current conditions from those that weren’t planning to camp has been…

A Monday evening update for you – southwest WI got socked pretty good, but that’s fairly inconsequential for us. The rest of the state, particularly the watershed, didn’t see a ton of action. And even though there’s a chance of…

Friday evening update: Few sprinkles today, not bad. Sunday still looking dry. For tomorrow, from our local NWS forecaster: Saturday and Saturday night…Forecast Confidence is Medium. Unsettled weather is expected for Saturday. Showers and a fewstorms will likely be ongoing…

3rd year in a row where I think maybe we should just stay closed until July… The storm wasn’t so bad in the lower 2/3rds of the river. Unfortunately, the northern 1/3rd did get 3-4″ of rain. From what’s happening…

Given the smaller number of sandbars, I pulled up satellite images from similar water levels last month (4/16/20). You may want to use these to plan a few campsites and know where the sandbar of last resort is. I believe…

Update: The weather forecast has firmed up a bit. Looks like a strong pressure wave will be moving through our area Saturday afternoon evening bringing a few hours of showers and a line of storms. The concern for severe weather…

Update: 12:18pm 8/8/19 A couple more storms happened up north Tuesday and Wednesday – we’re not in danger of cancelling trips but it does mean we’ll get that rise in water levels right over the weekend. We’ll probably lose about…

I haven’t seen a forecast this good in a long, long time. Aside from great weather to be outside in, this dry sunny stretch should really help drive down those recent high water levels to their late summer lows. I’d…

River levels are dropping quickly and as expected. We will just barely be able to squeeze trips out tomorrow (Friday) with Saturday and Sunday looking pretty good considering all of the rain that just made it’s way through the system.…

Update: 7/24 12:12pm Nailed it. Dam at Castle Rock just dropped to 10.5kcfs (my graph doesn’t reflect this at time of post but my data straight from the source below does) which should get us to ~13kcfs here with room…

Update: July 20, 2019 7:04am Water is beginning its drop and should be reasonable tonight (still fine as is at 12kcfs but will be happier below 10kcfs for extra sandbar availability). Forecast models look to be bringing a single storm…

I rate this coming July 12-14 weekend a solid 7.5 out of 10. Sandbars are popping out left and right today and water levels will continue their big drop for the next few days at least. They could be a…

[Quick update: 7/8 1:47pm – Flow rates up north have dropped by half (18kcfs to 9kcfs) so by Wednesday afternoon we’ll be in the clear with sandbars coming on strong shortly after] The weather forecast looks amazing (finally!). The next…

Update: 1:12pm 7/5/19 Water is back up (about 6″ too high), overnight trips are cancelled but day trips are still on. Should be good to go for overnight trips by early next week. This time of year, water will drop…