tamarack

Whiff? Or merely 8 hours later than current thinking?

964 mb bomb in Boothbay Harbor might be a bit too close for all snow in the foothills.

That's mainly because it's based on my personal obs and averages, and my records only go back to 1976. Some older 40(+) cold runs: Fort Kent (my obs): Dec 11-31, 1981 thru Jan 18, 1981: -11.5 NYC (Central Park) data, working backwards: Dec 30, 1976 thru Feb 7, 1977: -11.6 Feb 1 thru Mar 12, 1934: -12.6 (Add Jan 29-31, and it's -12.9. Mid-Jan was too warm to include Dec 29-31, 1933 in a '40'.) Dec 29, 1917 thru Feb 6, 1918: -15.0 Farmington, Maine co-op: Dec 11, 1980 thru Jan 19, 1981: -15.7 Nov 21 thru Dec 30, 1989: -14.7

2/8-9/2013. Scattered 30"+ (including 31.9" at PWM, their biggest on record) and lots of 20s. My area had 9-11" while AUG (25 mi SE) and LEW (40 mi s.) had ~25".

High ratios would give us 10-12". Cold sand, high-end advisory.

Can't recall seeing that as a forecast, but we've had at least 3 stretches of 40-day BN temps in Maine. Gardiner (9 miles south from AUG): Nov 22-Dec 30, 1989: 13.2 BN Dec 26, 1993-Feb 3, 1994: 11.5 BN New Sharon (western Maine foothills): Jan 26-Mar 6, 2015: 12.7 BN ariof noted 2 of those 3. A shorter (25 day) run was Dec 14, 2017 thru Jan 8, 2018: 15.9 BN

56.8" where I grew up in NNJ? We had 50" there from Jan 19 thru Feb 4 in 1961, but the above shows 7" more and a week shorter. Can always go up from there.

Our 4 winters in the back settlement in Fort Kent averaged 141". We lived on the north side of the road and the end of plowing. Plow drivers had to plow our side first, but they didn't have to clear 3/4 of the final width on that first pass. Banks would climb to 7-8 feet on our side, 3-4 feet on the other side. Worst time was in Dec 1983, 10" SN followed by 1"+ RA, followed by another 1.5" and plunging temp. I faced a wet mess 3 feet high and 5 feet wide - lots of work for the snow scoop. While I was in the woods west of Allagash, my neighbor plowed the driveway, very helpful but had to leave 30" vertical banks on both sides and back, which were frozen solid by the time I got home. Short of using dynamite, all scoop dumping had to be into the road rest of winter, including the 18.5" storm in early Feb and 26.5" mid-March.

Yikes! The trees that withstood Helene in the NC/TN mountains would be torn apart if that were to verify.

My favorite bust, April 1982, is one that didn't fit the weak pressure - don't know the mb but something produced the gusts to near 60 in northern Maine. We heard about the blizzard conditions in NYC at game time at Yankee Stadium on 4/6, but the storm was progged for OTS. Afternoon forecast from CAR was cloudy, windy 20s. The evening revision added "flurries". At 9 PM when I went out to reset the max/min I noted the prominent ring around the moon and thought "I wonder . . ." Woke up about 2 AM and the view outside had that 'thick' gray texture of middle-of-night S+. CAR recorded 26.3" from that storm. My guess at our place was 17" but with the gales, who knows. High temp on 4/7 was 17 but the stake level actually dropped from 27" to 26" - it was in a wind-scoured valley between drifts about 4 feet taller. Our little black Chevette was almost totally buried; only a palm-sized patch was visible.

Or cornmeal. Jan 27-28, 2015 dumped 20" at our place, all at single-digit temps, and with 2.17" LE - a nice 9:1 ratio. Stuff was nasty to walk thru, like deep soft sand.

Biggest snowfall I've experienced, March 14-15, 1984 (26.5") began at about 1030 mb and over its near-24h hour dumping, drifted down to about 1017. To the north there was a very strong cold HP, don't have its mb but the afternoon high on 3/12 was 1°. CAR 29.0", BGR 22.2". From up here we'll be watching at a distance while feeding the woodstove. -20s Sunday morning?

On Jan 18, 1982 it was -34 at our back settlement home in Fort Kent, accompanied by gusts 35+ and 2-mile vis. in teeny-grain SN. Old WCI chart showed -101 that morning, new chart about -70. Got up to -14 that Monday afternoon. The day before we took half of a Bible college men's quartet to our church as temps plummeted thru the minus teens in howling gales. As they lifted their jackets from our car, the dry-cleaner's thin plastic covers were shattered by wind and cold. I'm getting a 2002-03 vibe this winter. That snow season was our 2nd coldest DJF of 27 (behind 2014-15), but also the driest. Total snow was 21" BN as we watched the big dogs from afar.

3.0 Saturday and 0.5 last night. Dry snow but with almost no wind the trees are still loaded. Some occasional mood flakes this afternoon.

I don't know how familiar you are with southern Franklin County. We're several miles NW from Hampshire Hill in the Muddy Brook watershed, between Weeks Mills and Industry Roads. (Muddy Brook flows under Rt 2 about 1/2 mile west of the Sandy River bridge.) Hampshire Hill is on the Rome-New Sharon border.

Be nice to get something even close to "massive" here. The Christmas Eve 8.5" brought the total to nearly 4" above my average thru 12/24. In the 26 days since we've had 9 events with accumulating snow. Despite all that activity, we're now an inch below YTD average. Those 9 events totaled 12.2" with none greater than 3.0", another march of the midgets like last winter post-Christmas. Trees do look lovely, however, and the 13" pack is right on the average.

This past weekend brought the first audible sled noise I've heard this winter, but no use yet on the club trail thru our woodlot. Our new neighbors (probably will build this coming warm season) plowed the road past our place last week, including about 1/2 mile of that club trail. Once the new crew is living on the lot, the club might need to either relocate that half mile or abandon a large segment of their trails.

Fresh dry snow atop glare ice is the nearest thing to a frictionless surface outside of a HS/college physics lab. Falls are exciting. Landings are painful.

Would be great - 4 huge storms that month. Would've been nice to have gotten all 4 but the 2 that reached here totaled 36.4".

Continuous light/very light snow since 6 this morning, maybe 1.5" so far. Hoping that by tomorrow this stuff will have bonded a bit with the underlying ice.

Without that midnight high (actually, my 9 PM obs), temp on the 25th was -16/-23 at our in-town place at Fort Kent, along with gusts approaching 40. 1st CT Lake's 12/26/80 (7 AM obs) temp was -24/-32. Only colder maximums I've found in New England were on MWN. Mt. Mansfield has tied it.

A query about AFD language, at least from GYX. Up until this month, it began with a quick summary, followed by Near Term (~12 hr), Short Term (out to 36) and Long Term (out to 168). This month the AFD begins with What Has Changed, a short paragraph, followed by Key Messages, usually 2 or 3. Then each key message is discussed. Rarely has the AFD offered more than a quick sentence, if that, past Day 3 or 4. Personally, I found more useful info from the old language.

To mirror that game, we'd need to be 25" AN by Jan 31 then nada for the 2nd half of snow season. We're enjoying low 30s RA/fog so far today. GYX forecast for the "legit storm" is 0.5".

First sentence was spot on, though the 7th was halfway between 6th and 8th. Temps here: 1-6: 18 -2 7-12: 35 19 The 7-12 "norms" are 1.4° lower than 1-6, making the mild-up even greater.

A long way from far northern Maine here, but snowfall/pack season-to-date are very close to average. My lament is the continued mega-meh that we've had for the past 20 months. This month's temps have been Jekyll-Hyde so far - first 6 days were 9.7 BN, 7-12 have been 10.3 AN. Today-tomorrow will run +15-20 before things cool down to only 5° AN.