tamarack

And the Diesel fumes up there smell like a kerosene lamp thanks to all the #1 added so engines will start. In the 2009 record cold, when we touched -36 at my place, I was out at 9P, 1A, and 5A, so vehicles would start that morning. Then last winter I let my truck sit neither used nor started for 3 days over New Years. Jumper cables are real stiff at -27. (It's all fake cold, of course, but my truck's battery is unable to tell the difference.)

Never been sledding in those temps, though I got minor frostbite on my left ear at -16; windshield on that side had a considerable "bite" taken out by an earlier crash. I have gone bushwhacking at -40 near St.-Pamphile, PQ - was -47 at the house in Ft. Kent. The 4 of us had planned 4 separate explorations on T13R16 and T14R16, but decided for safety sake to go out in pairs. My chum, who was about 50 lb lighter than me, wanted to do most/all of the trailbreaking, as he couldn't stay warm walking in my deep snowshoe tracks. More fun was fueling Folsom's Jet Ranger at -37 (plus rotor wash) outside our Ft. Kent office. The ship had been hangared or otherwise heated in Greenvile but could not be depended on to restart in the intense cold.

That fellow in Bowdoinham sets up camps within 10 feet of open water sometimes. Of course, they're on a back eddy, not where the tidal current is running.

12-13 below at my place, but no wind. Ice has choked the narrow Kennebec channel in Augusta, earliest I've seen it catch there, probably by 7-10 days though I've not been keeping records. If we were to get some serious RA in the coming mild-up, the river could blow out the ice, but I'm guessing otherwise. Smelt camp entrepeneurs downriver in Randolph and Pittston are gearing up for business, if they haven't already done so.

First descent into double digits below this AM, somewhere in the -12/-13 range. BML bottomed at -17. Month thru yesterday running 8.2° BN, and today will push it down another half degree. Dec. 14-31 would need to be about +6 to wipe out the negative departures - could happen but I'm guessing it won't quite make it.

Looks like 5th rather than 4th? (Though it must be really close to 1971.) This year should overtake 1901 and 1971 for coldest 11/11 onward, as those years began mild-ups around the 10th. (1904 and 1989 are out of reach, maintaining the cold.)

Don't have Farmington co-op for Dec, but for Nov. 11-30, this year ranks #2, about a half degree behind 1978 and a whisker ahead of 1894.

We just did it (or close to it, depending on locale) for November, and big departures - in either direction - are more frequent in Jan than Nov.

Probably something good will happen around that time, if only because we'll be visiting family in SNJ and would miss it, just like Jan. 2015. The GFS, at least, has taken the volcanic heat off the table - just garden variety mild-up (for now.)

Had 0.1" to dust off the board. The expansion factor from my catchment bucket (a 5-gal) to an old wedge gauge is 40:1, and that still didn't come to 0.1", so LE was 0.002", reported as a trace. Enough to show where there was or was not ice on lakes, even at a distance.

Only the GFS op runs, but the mildest on the 16-day periods at Augusta has regressed from low 60s (with 2"+ RA) to low 40s (with small RA/mix events) over the past couple days - still 5-10° AN but the furnace seems to be burning lower.

Even a little more challenge after this morning - was swinging two heavy bags of garbage into the pickup and Isaac Newton's action-reaction law got me. The action of tossing those bags one way pushed my shoulders back the other, sufficient for my feet to slip on the ice, producing a sore tailbone. In March 2015 powder-covered ice on the porch steps led to some painful bounces down three of them, and that still hurt a year later. Today's stunt appears to be considerably less serious. (hope, hope)

My hand auger gets down 30", though one has to kneel to make the final turns, and it gets harder each year to get back up. By the time temps warm up late week, Flying Pond (favored icefishing spot) will probably have 12" or more thanks to near/below zero nights, subfreezing days, and no white insulation on the ice. That's crazy for the 2nd week of December.

That's why the Key deer in south Florida are so much bigger than the critters in Maine. Snark aside, Bergman's Rule states that animals within a species are larger in colder climates, and with proportionally shorter appendages. A warming climate might cause heat stress in those built-for-cold animals. Speaking of cold, might've touched -10 this morning before some clouds arrived to bump up temps. PQI hit -17. Long Pond in Belgrade now fully iced over, earliest I've seen that happen.

Nice 8" coastal up here, IIRC. Increased my 12/25 cumulative snowfall here by over 500%.