Peak Color?

September 30th through October 6th, 2024

Lake Lucerne
The Super Summer Bonus Period that we cherished and enjoyed ended early last week. High temperatures reached only into the 60s°F and a few morning lows spawned patchy frost. There was some wind and a little rain, too.
Lake Lucerne
The cold morning lows had the lake steaming.
Lake Lucerne
The color in the trees peaked last weekend. It was a strange peak. Most of the trees were decked out in reds, yellows and gold, but some still held onto shades of green and still others were leafless.
Lake Lucerne
Most of the trees were pretty peaky though.
Lake Lucerne
There was some wind last week. During one of the more blustery days, a shoe we left on a pier was picked up and blown into the water and presumably eaten by bass.
Lake Lucerne
As luck would have it, an identical shoe washed up on the shore a day later and all was good again.
Lake Lucerne
The air was cooler, but not cold enough to end the golf season.
Lake Lucerne
The fairways were still in good shape, the greens were slow, and Mrs Nemo's drives were far better than mine.
Lake Lucerne
Frost! It didn't cover the ground every morning and was not very thick when it did, but...Frost!
Lake Lucerne
The frosty mornings have taken their toll on the lake's temperature. It was 62°F when we last checked. It's no doubt lower now.
Lake Lucerne
The wind did occasionally calm down and Lucerne got footably flat.
Lake Lucerne
Then the wind would pick up again and make the lake faceplantably rough. More and more people are pulling boats and lifts from the increasingly un-swimmable water.
Lake Lucerne
Several sunsets were cool, calm, and colorful. The cool part made the ski boatlessness more tolerable.
Lake Lucerne
Through it all, small scatterings of corn on deck rails made for some happy blue jays.
Lake Lucerne
It rained on Saturday night. There was lightning. There was thunder. There was almost no accumulation. The lake area got less than a tenth of an inch. Lucerne's level fell 4.5 inches during September, pushing it down to a level not seen since May of 2017. Lucerne's level is still high, but it has lost almost a foot since the end of June. If Autumn switches to wet, we are hoping the precipitation falls overnight and remains liquid. October snow, while welcome for its lake level improvement, makes for a longer winter. If fall continues to be dry, we'll need a wet winter to keep it above the nail (the zero mark of the lake level).


-Nemo hasn't seen a mosquito for over a week.