tamarack

Back to light rain after several hours of moderate, total now 1.46". Saw that the Presumpscot is a foot over flood. My wife was taking friends to their family Christmas party in Westbrook, so I hope they live on high ground.

Steady light rain, 0.59" (with some IP at the start} and temp 34-35. That's not going to melt much of the small glacier outside unless we get those upper 40s now showing on the coast.

Only has to beat 2.8" at my place, and a 3" rain tops the entire month's snow to date (and I'll still be BN for temps when the storm moves on.) Probably (hopefully) it won't happen, unless I can count the 0.53" RA from Mon-Tues.

Almost 2" more than here in the snowy foothills, though we still have about 4" of armor plate atop the lawn, so the nice fat doe (which knew that the season ended last Saturday) had to work in getting a meal from drops beneath the apple trees. My average snowfall thru 12/13 is 11.9", so after running ahead of the average since Veterans' Day I'm now slightly behind. Average thru next Tuesday as 15.7" and models point more toward 2-3" than the 5" needed to jump back ahead of average.

As a forester in Maine, I view ice storms as by far the biggest wx threat to the resource, except perhaps at/near the coast. As a wx weenie I find ice storms to be one of the most interesting of winter phenomena - 1998 is the most impactful wx event of my experience. Looking at serious ice storms at or reasonably near to where I lived at the time: --Jan. 1953, NNJ: Huge tree damage, power off 6 days at our home, about 700' asl. Below 500' mostly RA. --Dec. 1970, NNJ: Serious tree breakage but nothing like 1953. Brief power loss --Dec. 1973, Northeast: This event devastated W CT and SW MA. Much of that region was still dark when we traveled BGR-NNJ for Christmas a week later. While utility poles were crumbling in CT/MA, my parents in NNJ had ZR at 15° while at our BGR home it was 56 with RA+. --Dec. 1983, N.Maine: About the same magnitude as 12/70 in NNJ. We lost some trees but power stayed on. --Jan. 1998: Perhaps the most extensive damage and areal impact of any North American ice storm on record. Damage near our Gardiner home was worse than 1953 at our NNJ place, though not by a whole lot. No power 4 days, some nearby folks 2 weeks+. --Dec. 2008: Mild at my current home, devastating on central MA hills and nearby. --Next???

The silver lining (probably corroded) is that arctic cold over bare ground might take out a lot of mice and voles, either directly or by exposing the critters to extra hungry predators. Then maybe, just maybe, there will be a lot fewer ticks around next year.

Same reaction to the GFS bowling ball around the same time - EPO at 961 mb.

Since I like snow in any part of snow season, I'd take the 30" March. Another reason is that, even though December averages 12% more snow than March (19.6" to 17.6"), March has recorded 9 storms of a foot or more compared to 4 such events in December. A third is average snow depth. Over 21 winters Dec. 1 has averaged 1" (only 5 had 1"+) and increases to 9" by the 31st. March begins with 21" on average and still has 13" on 3/31. To each their own. Do you know why that is exactly? (Why sunsets are later but the days are still getting shorter?) Years ago I read a fairly detailed reason for this, and came away confused. Not sure whether that was due to a poor explanation or my lousy comprehension.

Only 4 of 21 Decembers with wire-to-wire, with another 6 having 26-30 days with 1"+. Average duration is 21 days and median 24. Years with 130"+ consecutive. * means 31 in Dec. 18-19* 162 days 13-14* 142 14-15* 142 07-08 140 02-03* 137 16-17 136 17-18 132 Other end of the spectrum - years with <100 cons days 11-12 73 15-16 80 99-00 84 (zero in Dec) 05-06 95

Only 1/2" RA so far, thus still 4" of high-LE stuff at the stake this morning, likely down to 2-3" by evening depending on when the CAA gets working. Might disappear with the end of week event, probably only the 2nd time I've would've seen a pack with 2"+ LE disappear during met winter, the 1st being Jan. 1995 in Gardiner when 36 hours of 50+ temps/dews augmented by 1/2" RA ate a 14" pack.

New Year's Eve 1962, by far the coldest WCI I experienced before moving to northern Maine. NYC temp was 13/4 while my NNJ home had 5/-8, and winds that tipped large bare-limbed oaks out of semi-frozen soil, smashed windows and nearly tore the 10-12" ice from a nearby reservoir, piling about 20 ft worth of it on the lee shore. Along with the 1950 Apps gale, the strongest winds I've ever felt. It was the backside NW-ies of a monster storm for the BGR region. I was hoping Tex (whom I always watched if at all possible) would have some memorable comment on that day's wx but he'd had too much New Year's Eve cheer to be coherent.

Would be, except there's only a small arc between aiming too close to the neighbor's house (500' away, but still) and shooting my tool shed. Tiller is over 40 years old but it still works; would hate to lose it to friendly fire. Dense fog lasted less than 2 hours in Augusta, with visibility currently about 3/8 mile in moderate RA. Real warmth hasn't reached here yet, but 40° temp/dews still not nice to the pack.

Have not fired the .45 Hawken reproduction in several years, though I ought to burn some powder next fall. However, we've been putting the house back in order from the rearrangements needed to host daughter/husband/7 grandkids over Thanksgiving in a small house with one bathroom. Might still be worth a look at how the deer travel before reaching our lawn, for some future ambush.

Elevated valley? We were a relatively modest +1, only the 3rd coldest morning of the season. In other news, now that the general firearms season for deer has ended, those critters have become interested in the abundant drops beneath our most productive apple tree - had 7 in our 1/20-acre yard yesterday afternoon. It's traditional - no matter how many fruit-softening frosts and freezes in November (a lot these past two years), the deer don't move in before December.

Dusting of gritty flakes earlier at my place. Now awaiting the bad news.