Hitting the road? Here’s what you need to know
If you’re hitting the road for the three-day holiday weekend, here’s what you need to know: The weather will be nice for the most part, gasoline is going to cost nearly 60 cents a gallon more than it did last year, and critters ranging from fish to ticks will be biting.
Let’s start with the weather. Right on cue, summer is forecast to arrive in
Wisconsin this weekend.
“It’s going to be hot and humid,” said Sean Miller, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sullivan.
Look for high temperatures of 85 to 87 inland, with highs closer to 80 along the Lake Michigan shoreline, Miller said.
All that humidity will lead to chances for scattered thunderstorms across the state.
“We’re not looking for any kind of washout where it rains all day,” Miller said. “Some areas might have a couple hours of rain or storms and then that will move off.”
You can almost extend that forecast statewide.
“We’re all going to be in that warm and humid air mass,” Miller said, with some areas of western Wisconsin pushing 90 degrees during the weekend.
Look for nighttime temperatures to range from 50 to 60 in the far north and 60 to 65 in the south, Miller said.
There could be some strong storms, but forecasters as of Wednesday weren’t expecting any widespread severe weather outbreaks in the state.
As for those rising gasoline prices you’ve been seeing lately: Nationwide, a gallon of regular is now hovering around $3, the highest since Memorial Day weekend in 2014, according to travel organization AAA.
Those higher prices are due to an increase in the global price of crude oil and record-setting demand for gasoline in the U.S.
Prices were at or above $3 in parts of the Milwaukee area on Wednesday, with the statewide average at $2.91.
Still, gas prices aren’t high enough to keep travelers at home, with automobile travel expected to increase for the fourth straight year, by nearly 5 percent over last Memorial Day, AAA says.
“Although holiday prices at the pump are projected to be the highest in four years, AAA does not expect gasoline to come anywhere near 2014 levels, where the national average was $3.66,” the organization said.
The majority of Memorial Day travelers — 36.6 million nationally and 733,397 in Wisconsin — will travel by car, SUV or pickup truck.
The worst traffic congestion is likely in the late afternoon on both Thursday and Friday, as commuters leave work early and mix with holiday travelers, according to projections by INRIX, a global transportation analytics company, in collaboration with AAA.
“Our advice to drivers is to avoid peak commute times in major cities altogether — traveling late morning or early afternoon — or plan alternative routes.” Graham Cookson, chief economist and head of research for INRIX, said in a statement.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation said it will temporarily halt construction work on many highway improvement projects across the state for the weekend.
Construction in most highway work zones will stop by noon Friday and will not resume until 6 a.m. Tuesday.
In Wisconsin, the DOT says peak travel times are expected to occur between noon and 8 p.m. Friday and Monday.
Fishing is a big deal in Wisconsin, where there are more than 1 million anglers. Those hitting the water this weekend should find some good fishing.
“The fishing has been phenomenal even though the late ice kind of messed up the spring. The water temps have really gone up steadily. This next week to two weeks is going to be phenomenal,” said Robert Lass, owner of Jokin’ Joe’s Bait and Tackle in Three Lakes. “I’m ordering twice as much bait as I did last year.”
“Ticks are definitely out in full force at the moment, so anyone heading outdoors this Memorial Day weekend should be on the lookout,” said P.J. Liesch, extension entomologist and director of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.
As far as other bloodsucking critters, “I haven’t seen huge numbers of mosquitoes yet in the state, but we often see our first big batch of them around Memorial Day weekend or shortly thereafter,” Liesch said.
“I suspect that we’ll start seeing a lot more mosquitoes within the next few weeks as we inch towards summer.”
To figure out what works best for repelling ticks and mosquitoes, Liesch suggested checking out the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s repellent selector tool.
For southeastern Wisconsin residents opting to stay home for the holiday weekend, there will be plenty to do, not the least of which is a home stand featuring the first-place Milwaukee Brewers against the New York Mets at Miller Park.
The Brewers are off to their best 50game start in franchise history.
The weekend series with the Mets includes a number of ticket specials and giveaways. The Sunday afternoon game features a giveaway of Travis Shaw “Mayor of Ding Dong City” bobbleheads.
Then, on Monday, Memorial Day, it’s $1 hot dog day at Miller Park. If that alone isn’t enough for you, there will be a game, too, against the National League Central Division rival St. Louis Cardinals.