Lots of rain again locally and to the south of our watershed. I don’t envy some of you guys down south, especially with more coming. For us, while we did see an immediate rise in local water levels, it’s an overall small impact on our trips compared to the middle third of the river valley. We’re still above a fair amount of the local rainfall by the time it gets into the Wisconsin River after it makes its way through all of the tributaries. Massive rainfall in the central part of the state is what really makes an impact because by the time all of that rain has filtered downstream into the Wisconsin River, it gets to us as one big wall of water. I’m always happy to avoid the wall.
All of this is to say that while yes, it’s wet, and yes, we’re higher than usual, and yes, it’s gonna rain again Friday night, we’re still looking good with both weather and sandbar availability for Saturday and Sunday. Friday during the day also seems to be clearing up though rain/storms look unavoidable overnight. On the brightside, even if we get a ton of rain Friday, it won’t have time to really get into the system and wash us out until later in the week (but we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it).
On the picture below, we’re at the tip of the white arrow. The faded white areas are all part of the watershed for the Wisconsin River. Draw a horizontal line across La Crosse and anything above there is what I usually worry about.
-Ryan