Saguaro

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

The trough went through mid morning for much of the region on 7/22 so we got a big dew drop to let the heat soar. 7/21 and that following night was oppressive though. 

IZG had 101° on 7/22. 

I remember that day well. If I recall correctly it came as a surprise since it was supposed to be HHH and ended up as H. Still impressive highs given triple digits are exceedingly rare in ME. The summer of 2011 had a bit of all the things which the vast majority of summers don't in NNE.

2 hours ago, tamarack said:

Added to the sadness is that, in early January, Cool Spruce wondered whether that stalled retro-bomb might wreck winter - he was spot on.  Unfortunately, not long after that came the stroke that took him off the board and eventually (I assume) took his life.  We were kindred spirits about trees and forests.

I also remember him specifically mentioning that event in the same way. He was a good friend of mine for many years. Taught me interesting things about forestry that I never would have found out otherwise. I tried to keep in touch with him after the stroke but didn't have much success.

Changed to rain shortly after I posted that last obs.

Gigantic flakes in Harrison, looks like the changeover is imminent. I'd say there's about 6-7" new accumulation, but that's a visual estimate only.

It's remarkable how persistent and reliable the grinch storm is every year in the Dec 20-25 timeframe. During my two decades living in Maine, I can only recall one or two years where we actually had a currier and ives tier white Christmas that was free of said grinch. It almost seems a given that if any significant snow events happen before the 25th, that incurs a debt which must be repaid in torchy rain between the 20 and 25th. If I recall correctly, this anomaly has even become visible in some long term climate records.

Finally some much needed sunshine after 5 days. This past week smacked of a classic warm season "cosmic dildo" event as Tip likes to say. Ridge trying to build in the east gets kneecapped by Atlantic crud which rots for days over the coastal plain before the ridge finally breaks down and the surface front clears it out. Meanwhile those locations to the west of the coastal plain divide torch with sunshine and unseasonable warmth. It did feel like a borderline tropical airmass with dewpoints in the 60s the last few days. Interestingly enough, the lows at IZG during this timeframe have been warmer than the lows back in the Phoenix area with the large trough that's taken over the western half of the country.

 

On 10/25/2022 at 11:51 AM, klw said:

Then came the Post 9/11 crackdown:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-town-where-buying-gas-can-get-you-in-big-trouble/article25425851/

Things were far less stressful at the borders before 9/11. Didn't even need a passport back then for either Canada or Mexico. From what I hear, in the US/Canada border towns, during those times they didn't block off all the side streets that crossed the border and the residents of border towns regularly went across on them without hassle. The Escourt station debacle certainly didn't help existing tensions between Quebecois and US residents.

25 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Once one gets north of Rt 2, most of the "pines" are spruce and fir.  (And maybe you knew that already.)

Just a rudimentary knowledge. I'm not well versed in the proper terminologies, but saw how they change once getting past Augusta or so on 95 as well as that drive on 26. In the past I had a friend who used to be in the forest service and pointed these things out to me.

 

3 hours ago, Hoth said:

Really on the receiving end of the ol' cosmic dil today. Awful weather.

Yea it's pretty miserable looking out today.

20 hours ago, mreaves said:

Made the trip home from Augusta today. I always go over on Rt. 2 and then go home cutting across to 302 as I love the Naples/Bridgton area. Drove through the dirty Lew, somewhere in the vicinity of the Lava Rock and right through Alex and Nopoles land. It was like an AMWX NNE tour. 

302 is about a 5 minute drive from Harrison. I'm always going on there for grocery runs in North Conway/Windham as well as to PWM for my flights to/from Phoenix.

 

4 hours ago, tamarack said:

Only 2-3 miles from dryslot, too.  About the same as from Lava Rock when a few mils to 302.
When my parents lived in Woodsville, NH, we would take the same route from Lewiston to North Conway on the way there, then drive the Kanc and Kinsman Notch.  Less spectacular but nice rural Maine was Route 11 from Mechanics Falls to Rt 302.  Our return trip usually took the northerly route, to Jefferson and then Rt 2 to Bethel, 26 to 219 thru the Sumner woods, another even more rural Maine country drive.

26 from Bethel to Errol is interesting too. There's a mountain divide where the rain snow line often sets up in the winter, and which acts as a barrier to marine crud in the warm season. The pines there are also more of the kind upstate and downeast.

13 hours ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

So is there actual border patrol up there? It looks like you can just drive right into Canada and not even know it lol

I saw cameras and the border patrol does have a presence. I imagine it's a pain for those living in the houses on the Vermont side of QC247 just to leave their driveways.

Here you can see a CBP suv at the hilltop watching who drives into Vermont to make sure they stop at the port of entry:

The red apartment building is split by the border as well.

 

5 hours ago, tamarack said:

Quebecois from Estcourt and nearby villages cross into Estcourt Station (pop ~20) to get cheaper US gas, though up there even the US fuel is more costly than in more southerly parts of Maine.

There's an Irving station in Derby line that was filled with Quebecois getting gas. The price was about 10 cents higher than further down 91 at the next exit, but that's still lower than Quebec gas. The store employees inside were even fluent in French.

 

Yea that library is actually the building in the second picture. The border runs through the center of it. It was closed when I was there so I wasn't able to look inside.

Just down the way in western Stanstead the provincial Quebec route 247 is bisected down the centerline by the border as well. The houses on the right side are in Vermont and the left side Quebec:

 

Facing the other direction, the white and gray house beyond the corner is also split by the border:

35 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Some of those border towns are wild. Like one sidewalk in Canada the other in the US.  I think there are a couple buildings up there literally bisected by the international border.

A little different than the border environment down along Mexico/US.

Much different for sure. I have a picture when I went down to Nogales in southern AZ a while back, I'll have to see if I can find it.

These past few weeks I've been back in Maine again. Last weekend I made the drive from western Maine up to Montreal to see a friend for a few days. The route went through the White Mountains and Vermont before reaching Quebec. Here's a few pictures from the journey.

Rt 302 in the White Mountains was packed with tourists looking at the colors:

 

I crossed the border at a town called Derby Line in Vermont. Some of the foliage there was still vibrant. This one is just on the Quebec side:

 

Facing the other direction, an old customs house and post office:

 

On the border looking into the top of Vermont:

4 hours ago, powderfreak said:

It is pretty impressive how tenacious that NE trough is… looping the 850mb temps out to day 16 is just a continual baking of the center of the nation and every time it attempts to slide a bit NE it gets beaten down hard.

GFS went full body trough over us out in mid-July on that 6z run.  EPS continues to show big heat squeezed into PA and then just get crushed.

Yea it's become pretty clear that this just isn't the year in NE if one is looking for another 2011/2002 etc. Once that pattern change happened at the end of May it's just been lights out. The long range is just shutting any chance down past the middle of July. At that point, how much time is left? In NNE once you reach mid August it's pretty much done. At least the summer temps and storms are reliable out this way, currently at 100 looking to reach 104 this afternoon.

 

48 minutes ago, weatherwiz said:

I'm sick and tired of opening up Radarscope and seeing these massive severe thunderstorm watch boxes in Canada. Not fair. I mean it seems like some of these areas have been under a watch for like 3 weeks straight...wtf. 

It feels like Quebec gets far more reliable convection events than NE. I saw some videos of a tornado there a few years ago that did some pretty serious damage to an apartment complex and surrounding areas.

Monday ended up being a lot nicer than expected. Dark and gloomy in the morning with rain gave way to lots of sun in the afternoon. It seems SNE was stuck in the clouds and rain the whole day. Looking at the forecast, 80s are finally more attainable for the first time of the season. May even make a run for 90 again on Friday. After that, no real sign of any heat, as has been the case since May, and the GFS is continuing its usual parade of troughs drilling into NE.

Headed back to AZ today. Forecast changes accordingly from this:

Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 81.
Tonight: Scattered showers between 9pm and 1am. Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear, with a low around 56.
Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 79.
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 56.
Friday: Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 90.
Friday Night: A 40 percent chance of showers after 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 64.
Saturday: Showers likely, mainly after 8am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 84.
Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 56.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 83.

To this:

Today: Sunny, with a high near 105.
Tonight: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms between 9pm and midnight. Partly cloudy, with a low around 87.
Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 107.
Wednesday Night: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 85.
Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 104.
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 83.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 104.
Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 83.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 105.
Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 84.
Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 105.

Most of the lows there will actually be close to the daytime highs in ME. Also of note is the differing criteria for "hot." For PSR, that means at least 110. GYX by comparison is a mere 90.

 

1 hour ago, Cyclone-68 said:

Fwiw live cam footage of a t storm headed into Phoenix AZ

 

https://www.phoenix.gov/citycam

Monsoon pattern has started up. There was a dust storm warning a few days ago as well.

KFFZ 270215Z 05010KT 1 1/4SM +RA BKN028 BKN070 OVC090 26/19 A3004 RMK AO2 RAB01 P0020 T02610189

IZG at 93. Solid summer day.

 

Abundant sunshine out there this morning, with temperatures in the lower 80s. IZG is already upper 80s. Dewpoints were mid 60s but are mixing out already. Forecast is for 90 but we'll see if that actually happens. I'm sure IZG won't have any issue reaching it, but it runs a bit cooler over here with the lakes around. Forecast calls for 80s returning by Wednesday and lasting through the end of the week.

 

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's interesting what's going on in the models - the operational versions... and they're all carrying on with the same idea, too. 

For the next week to 10 days, they are ejecting Sonoran/SW heat released air masses then taking them along flatter arced trajectories, all the way across.  The heat plume wend their N edges to about mid state Michigan's latitude ... Then, ESE from there. They miss our region but are however close enough that their skirt +15 to +18C 850mb does occasional waft over us.  

We may not make big heat numbers, but an above normal look. Yet, the flow construct above the border with Canada looks cold.   The Euro in fact does get 20 to 21C in here at least for one day..I think next Sat...  This footprint pattern seems to then set up a similar scenario later on.    It's like today, then Thu -Sat, another two day lull, and then another flat surge maybe D10 -12/13

The whole while, the flow construct along and N of the Can/U.S. border just cannot seem to shake these blocking nodes, which the models even gather into a SPV structure over eastern Canada that sets over top.   It's kinda strange... Typically when +16 to +21C charged cyclic ejecta swath the country, there is more subtropical ridging...

It feels like this is a persistent trend no matter what the summer. Even in 1995, outside of that one day in southernmost NE, the record heat was consistently shunted to the south. The only years I can think of which might have been exceptions to this would be 1988, 1999, and 2002.

 

4 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

It’s much larger than last year too. Crazy.

It has moved into western Maine as well. It's weird because it stops right at the 302 crossing of the saco river swamp area in Fryeburg. East of there the trees are normal.

Today's the first solid summer day I've felt since arriving here back on the 6th. It feels a tad humid too but the dewpoints are only upper 50s. I guess I'm still used to the 20s dewpoints in AZ. Temperature is currently in the mid 80s. Headed back to AZ mid week, and with the shift to the monsoon pattern, the dewpoints there will be 50s to mid 60s for the foreseeable future.

 

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Holy caterpillar Phil on 93 before exit 18 in New Hampshire. Looks like Dendrite’s chicken worms went wild.

 

58 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Idk what that is…thought about contacting UNH about it. They did the same thing last year. They never really leafed out in the spring until June. I don’t think it’s necessarily caterpillars.

Lots of bare trees in North Conway and Fryeburg too. I don't know if it's those same bugs that were doing it in SNE the last few years.

Another battle of clouds and sun today, low level marine crud with this onshore flow. Struggling to reach 70. Satellite trend looks like it may clear out better with time.

 

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Depends on what we mean by 'heat' in this context.  If we're dancing around the notion of 'big' as an adjective?  I'm inclined to agree - but inclination isn't an outright sale, either. Lol. 

No but it's likely to be 90/59 on Saturday, and perhaps 92/62 on Sunday or whatever ( I have spent retentive time on it this morning...) Even though the 850 mb kinetic expulsion goes through that aspect you noted, where it collapses roughly BUF's longitude, the 850s are warm nonetheless.

Muse:  This whole closed(ing) mid level thing off the upper MA/NE coast ...it isn't a "coastal" in that sense. It has very little lower attending expression .. of which is missing, a CAA region around a west arc of a cyclone model... It's one of those ordeals where as it pulls away, you default warmer. We see this behavior in the early and late chapters of winters ... where the colder aspect was the front side of the event.  Then as the low moves away and the sun comes out, the temp rockets to 44 F that afternoon or the next day... and that beautiful 10" of new snow ends up 4" of glop.

So the weekend ... the OV to NE region defaults under +15 to 17C 850s, with [apparently] low ceiling RH, while slowly increasing WSW gradient spanning those two days.  By convention, 90 is hot .. it's just not very big.   

Little longer:  Also .. further down the road, there's a dicey period D8.5 - 11 on these models.   The 00z and 06z GFS briefly closes off a 594+ dm contour over the upper mid Atlantic during that span, and both the GGEM and Euro indicate a significant mass of SW released air is/has extended all the way to the Va coast across the continent at that same time as the GFS. Meanwhile, the telecon footprint -PNA is still in place... I'd call that playing with fire ... 

Heat's really fragile in guidance, and in practice once above ~ 35 N. It only takes a subtle outflow from shower two towns over to undermine a hot afternoon. In the macro sense ( in guidance) just about any perturbation imaginable tends to offset big numbers. Be it a poorly timed debris plume off an MCS ... or a diffused front below the sensitivity of WPC's detection..  The closer to 95 ... 100, the more perfect things need to be.  But, the flip side of the fragility is that it can be 'hidden' by these offsets, in guidance, and then if the guidance removes the offsets...it can emerge rather quickly. 

In the period leading and going through the D8 to 12, there is a -PNA hot signal that appears to have the elephant ass of the polar regions suppressing it south.  It's like spring loaded heat in a sense.  If/when the N branch of the westerlies relaxes thru S/SE Canada, the heat end up N in tandem.  If the N stream is correct as is, we narily miss.

Yea I should have been more clear with that. I had in mind the classic heat events from summers past, which last 3 or more days. Dewpoints at least mid 60s, daytime highs 90+. I don't really see one or two days of muted, upper 80s to 90 as qualifying, at least not by this time of the season.

Perhaps this relentless trend will relax some in the coming weeks, but it's been my observation that more often than not, Junes which turn out like this one lead on to lackluster summers. That's just for this part of NE though. SNE has better chances of getting something unless this turns out like 96, 2000, 2009, or the second half of 2013. Many a time the warm front stalls, keeping ME and the coastal plain of NH/NE MA shut out while SNE and VT can pull off several days of summer.

7 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

I had been watching it all morning ...because I have such a richly fulfilling and meaningful life otherwise ... and it's been interesting to see this rarity of improved conditions materializing from the Labradorian region - it's almost like the curse tried to hard and over shot. Lol 

Bust seriously it's got to be a unique synopsis to drive this total scenario like this.  Over the next 30 hours, we see the closure of mid level circulation then drive west some 350 naut mi of distance from 65 W to nearly 72 W, some 3 standard non-hydrostatic intervals of depth ... That's an unusual feature and trajectory combination at this time of year.   That sort of retrograde motion is more apt to occur in Feb and March, for seasonal reasons/concepts.  But in doing so, this bulging west of the warm front and associated cloud band did seem to happen in lock-step with the backing 500 mb flow that is currently taking place S of NS.   It's ironic that a close 500 mb/u/A low causes nice weather to happen on the coast?

like wtf chuck -

It reminded me of my years living in socal. We'd get stuck in those May Gray/June Gloom patterns where the onshow flore/marine layer wouldn't budge for several days on end. When it was badly entrenched enough there'd sometimes be what LOX called "reverse clearing," where the immediate coast broke out in sun while inland was boned and never cleared out.

That warm front ground to a screeching halt in central NY. Usually they make it to at least the merrimack valley this time of year.

Sunshine finally won the battle. The edge of gloom has receded west into the SE third of New Hampshire. Temps have risen to the lower 70s.

 

8 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Up to 63.6F at 1pm.

Mixed sun and clouds in western ME, it's gotten up to mid 60s. We're right on the edge between that giant mess that extends back to central NY, and the clear skies in the rest of ME. Quite breezy too.

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Re heat this weekend:  I'm noticing the 2-m products suggest sucking the DP out of the air, as it the air mass spills E of the western OV/E Great Lakes... Some of that is d-slope, but I wonder about these erstwhile deficits lending to that.  It's kind of like a inverse dry-line somewhere along the spine the Apps.   But  63 to 65 type air mass seems to end up in the high 50s across SNE ..both Sat/Sun afternoon, when both global models have 90 to 95 west and north of the marine zones.   Maybe a dry heat pulse. 

I'm starting to wonder if this 2023 warm season is going to go down this way ... Like, for ever 10 days of translucent blue and/or temp challenged scung overcast like today, we finally get 2 days of summer where we pay yet more in curse-taxes for existing here with stealing DPs or some other shit to take something back... unreal

I just don't think this will be a summer for any kind of heat in NE. I've seen this type of regime settle in for many of the summers of the 2010s and it's all too familiar. There's a burst of heat in May and then a pattern change where the door slams shut for the remainder of the warm season. More often than not, May ends up having the highest daily temperatures of the season. We've even just had the requisite horror show we went through over the weekend which is a staple of these types of summer patterns. Sunday we were in the 40s and lower 50s all day with thick overcast and afternoon rain. Even back in January and February I don't recall any day that chilly and miserable in Phoenix.

Another thing of note is how these 23-25c 850 temps moving well into Ontario and Quebec at the moment are absolutely obliterated once they try moving east of the Tug hill longitude. There's even some kind of cyclonic circulation backing into NE from the atlantic while that's happening.

49 minutes ago, moneypitmike said:

We’ll that came in fast.  Not much thunder and lightning, but the wind is howling 

If you're in Bath that is probably the line that came through here in the IZG area a couple hours ago. I believe that is associated with the front itself since it felt like the dewpoints dropped once the sun came back out. It was just getting started when it came through here so nothing other than a few rumbles, some wind and brief bouts of heavy rain before it was done.

 

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Some FROPA came through up here.

Dew point at 65F with rain showers this morning, now down to 52F and dry breezy weather.

Yea I believe it came through here too around noon with some weak storms. Crashed temp from near 80 back to mid 60s. It's recovered to mid 70s.