tamarack

Yesterday was pure sun, little wind, 39/2, mildest max of the month so far. Low was 1 this morning but clouds moved in late morn and probably won't let the temp get past the low 30s.

Near 32, TD probably mid-teens (IZG 1 PM 32/15) and clouds thick enough to block the glow spot. Should wet-bulb into the 20s and maybe some decent ratio like 12:1.

That's where GYX is for here, while channel 13 has us in the coating-2" color, and a lot closer to nada than to 2-4". Yesterday it looked like a whiff.

A wider stripe but otherwise looks like today's miss. Maybe 1-2 here, and GYX has Monday as another miss (though that one's 5 days away and things will likely change a few more times).

One more time on the fringe? Or like today with breezy blue sky.

Two good storms here, 24" and 13.2", but by Dec 15 we'd gotten 51% of the snow season total, which was about 15" BN. January did have our coldest afternoon highs since Fort Kent on 14-15, with -11 and -8, and a stiff breeze. (The -11 was spoiled by the -7 at my previous evening's observations.) where's my projected 35" over the next 7 days???? Maybe move the decimal point one space to the left?

Same here but without the flakes. Sun tried but failed.

3rd year with a stinker month within met winter? Feb 24, 3.7" Jan 25, 5.6" All the above maps leave this area in the north fringe, though it's 3-4 days out.

So far, we're running behind Feb 2024 (our driest Feb of 27) for QPF. Have not had a truly powerful storm this cold season here - closest probably the southeast rainer on Dec 19. One could dispute my comment, citing 19.6" on Jan 25-27, but that was a product of freaky high ratios. LE of 0.77" and 10 mph breezes don't spell powerful to me. (That said, the 6 hours of floating feathers 7A-1P on Jan 26 is the prettiest spell of snowfall I can remember. That 6" addition was 98.5% air, far beyond any air/water ratio for a snowfall greater than one inch.)

I've seen little snow devils but nothing like those pics. The only dust devil I've seen came in the hot summer of 1966, where I was cooking burgers and dogs in the lodge at Curtiss-Wright's employee lake resort in NNJ. On a hot but dry and near-calm August, the small (<20 ac) lake was suddenly full of whitecaps from a north wind gusting probably to 40 down the long axis of the lake. The spinner formed at the south end of the lodge, moved against the wind behind the building, then headed across the water. On the way it tossed the thick cushion from a 6-foot lounge chair about 50 feet up into an oak while flipping the wooden chair end-over-end to the water's edge, also flipping the 14-foot rescue boat. It picked up the thigh-high steel base of an outdoor ash tray and carried it round and round across the lake and 30-40 feet off the water before hitting the far side woods and dissipating. My guess on why it formed was that the wind passing north-to-south past the lodge caused low pressure at the south end of the building, and air curling into the "vacuum" started to whirl and kept on spinning for several minutes. The sudden wind itself lasted less than 15 minutes.

VD07 was great here, 15.5" from 1.80" LE at temp near 10, especially appreciated as we'd gone nearly 2 years w/o a 6"+ snowfall. GYX has called VD15 their Valentine's Day Massacre. The night before, the forecast was 18-24 plus a blizzard warning. The day shift lowered snow to 12-18 and kept the blizz. Verified at 1.5", the 4th and final snowstorm that winter to verify at 1/8 (or less) of the forecast's low end. Meanwhile, SNE got buried and Machias, at 20' elev, measured 25". Looking forward to March 2001. The early storm was fine, 9.5", but nothing special. By month's end we'd had 55.5" with 48" pack on 3/31 as 35" came after the equinox.

Radar says it's snowing here, but the dry air is eating away, and no flakes have reached the ground yet. Hit -3 earlier this morning.

Might've been 1985. There was a giant Arctic high that encompassed nearly the whole country. Fort Kent, where we lived then, was at the east edge of the high and avoided record cold but never warmed up - January never got above 22F, but the coldest was a modest -23. Only the very AN Jan 1983 failed to get colder. In the other 8 winters we lived there, January's bottoms ranged from -30 to -47. 1981-82 had 185.8" total snowfall but had only 2 events with 12"+, 15.5" in Dec 19-20 and 17" in the April blizzard. January's coldest that year was -34 on the 18th, which came with winds 25-35 (WCI -101 on the old chart, about -70 in the new) and visibility of 3 miles in very light snow. Got all the way up to -14 that afternoon. Northern Maine can't compete with northern MN, but Jan '82's temp was 9/-12, only Jan 1994 was colder. (We'd moved to southern Maine in late 1985, and '94 there was quite cold, too.)

We had 43" depth on Feb 29, 2008 with 10-14" forecast ("Manitoba Mauler") for March 1; I figured 50+ was in the bag. Got only 6" which pushed the pack to 48", tops for that season, and there was still 35" on 3/31. Somewhere (not in the spreadsheet) I have a core measurement from March 2008, probably 13-14" as we totaled 142.3" and most of the snow had meat. DJFM precip totaled 22" and we had no extended thaws, just the one-day torch on Jan 8. Took a core earlier this afternoon, 20" pack held 3.86". We probably had about 2" SWE in year end's 8" pack and we've had 2.59" since then (includes 0.54" from 2 modest Jan RA). Factor in some sublimation and almost 4" seems appropriate.

Here's the coldest for each month, May 1998 on, contrasted with Fort Kent, Jan1, 1976 thru Oct 25, 1985. Month New Sharon Fort Kent Month New Sharon Fort Kent JAN -36 -47 JUL 37 32 FEB -29 -32 AUG 35 28 MAR -25 -32 SEP 23 20 APR 5 -7 OCT 11 7 MAY 21 20 NOV -4 -12 JUN 27 28 DEC -31 -42