tamarack

That winter was the best I've experienced, though 83-84 in Fort Kent is close. After watching the Wash/NY follies in the snow, we had light snow that began to intensify about bedtime. Woke up to low teens, S+ and 15"+. finishing with 18. Friend and I slogged thru the powder for a couple hours without seeing anything (NJ's firearms deer season opener) and headed toward home. There was my dad standing over a nice little buck about 250 yards from the house. He then schooled me on field dressing the critter - my first snotty thought, fortunately not spoken, was "Why can't he gut his own deer." Eight years later when I finally dropped a deer, I was very thankful. The JFK inaugural blizzard dumped 20" with temps about 10, followed by 2 weeks of cold (NYC's 16 consecutive subfreezing maxima is easily its longest) with small snowfalls, then the strongest of them all. I called it 24" but nearby sites were closer to 30 - impossible to get a firm depth in the howling wind. Pack climbed to about 45" (up to 52" in NW NJ) but the cold was gone. Had a 12" paste bomb on 3/23 to cap the season. 60-61 ended the most wonderful 5 years of big snows: 24" on 3/19-20/56; 18" on 2/15-16/58; 24" paste on 3/20-21/58; 18" on 3/3-4/60. Other than the Magnificent Seven, my NJ career of snow watching (1950-Jan 1973) had only one definite 18", 2/9-10/69, and 3 in the 15-18 range - 1/12-13/64, 12/24-25/66 (first thundersnow) and 2/7/67.

Never will happen. RA+ and 50s ate 5" snow in a flash, would've melted 15" if we'd had that much. Greatest positive departure for any day here, 1° more than 3/22/12.

All snow here, mostly tiny flakes - 2.5" from 0.26" LE. Broom snow, except for the plow pile I needed to shovel so the letter carrier can access our mailbox. (The pile is on the maintained road but the smaller truck with only one drive axle can't back up the slope. Wish they would run the 2-axle driver.) 8" at the stake.

The high-tension towers east of Montreal looked like Godzilla had visited.

At the time of the ice storm, we lived about 2 miles southeast from where the Maine Turnpike merges with I-295. Had ice 1.5"-1.75" and more damage on our 0.8-acre house lot than on the 62 acres of woodland where we've lived since May of 1998. Much of the precip there bounced rather than stuck. The greatest accretion I saw was on Greenwood Hill in Hebron, about 10 miles NW from @Dryslot. Over 2.5", first-year twigs had ice the size of a Pringles can. The most amazing fact to me, even beyond the NYC/Allagash difference, was the NH "sandwich". While Gorham was nearly all rain and MWM was setting a new record high temp for January, in between at ~1500-2500 elev. it was total disaster. When I first saw that the following summer, I thought it was clearcuts.

Jan 98: Southern PQ, northern VT/NH, central/Downeast Maine and into NB - catastrophic ice. Perhaps the country's most widespread ice storm disaster. Meanwhile, Allagash was 10° with S+ (Aroostook totaled 18-27") and NYC had 60 with RA. Light snow here, 20-21°, approaching 1/2".

Or when it's snowing despite the sharp shadows and hardwood trees fully green. Light snow here. We should be mostly snow, maybe a few pingers at worst. GYX says 3-5 plus a bit more after dark.

Coldest start to December since 1989, which was 14° BN for Dec 1-9 (in Gardiner). First flakes at 10:25 this morning, not including the 0.1" dusting last night. (Had to use the decimal as T mucks up my formulas.) DECEM 2025 Date High Low Mean HDDs Rain Snow Snowpak Departure 1 34 16 25 40 1 -2.4 -2.4 2 21 10 15.5 49.5 0.43 5.2 6 -11.2 -6.8 3 33 19 26 39 0.06 1.7 7 -0.2 -4.6 4 30 6 18 47 0.00005 0.00005 6 -7.8 -5.4 5 16 -9 3.5 61.5 6 -21.8 -8.7 6 18 -4 7 58 0.00005 0.00005 5 -17.8 -10.2 7 26 3 14.5 50.5 0.04 0.5 6 -9.9 -10.1 8 20 -3 8.5 56.5 0.05 0.9 6 -15.5 -10.8 9 18 -18 0 65 6 -23.3 -12.2

Might be 81-82. 80-81 was dry in Maine (Farmington co-op's least snowy of 130 winters) with very cold Dec/Jan followed by a spectacular February thaw - CAR had 14.5° for the month, including 9 days of +25-30, 7 of which were consecutive. 81-82 had scads of snow, capped by the April blizzard.

A bit noisier than my 5 minutes of broom work on 1.4" fluff.

Clipper produced only m0.09" LE but even with mostly tiny flakes that modest moisture brought 1.4".

Small lawn area with trees 60-80 feet tall. Mostly hardwoods but even they block about 1/3 of direct sun. That plus the frost pocket topography help to preserve pack. (Of course, our garden gets less sun and earlier frosts than most.)

Bit longer on the places I researched. Total 1"+ Consec. days CAR 134 120 Rangeley 143 131 Farmington 112 102 My short (27 yr) pack-retention spot: 123 total, 119 consec.

7-8 years ago, I wrote a short essay on potential effects of climate change on the Bureau of Parks and Public Lands' timber management. As part of it I looked at snowfall and temps for the northerly 2/3 of Maine where 90%+ of the BPL-managed acreage. I used CAR for the north, Rangeley for the mountains and Farmington for non-mountain inland areas. Temps have risen noticeably this century, particularly in deep cold - subzero mornings, important for freezing down winter roads. 21st century snowfall increased at all 3 sites, averaging 6% more. Duration of snow cover was lower (3-5%) at CAR and Farmington but up 5% at Rangeley - elevation helps, I guess. First subzero morning here - expected about -5 but reached -9, earliest in the season this cold since moving here in 1998. Maybe the wind quieted earlier than expected?

Reached -9 this morning, coldest we've had this early in the season. Saw -15 at HIE.

Squalls passed to the south, only a few flakes here, but wind is noisy and temps diving. Might go subzero tomorrow morning, would be the season's earliest since 2019.

Dover reported 7.0 and Rochester had reports of 8.0 and 7.0. PSM only 4.6".

Or use it very cautiously. After the 2.4" we had on Nov 16 the snow cover hung around for 7 more days, despite upper 30s maxima and sunny/PC skies. Move those conditions to March 16 and the cover is gone 2 days after the storm. Noting sun angle in December means holding onto the pack.

That was the max on 12/25/2020 at CAR. +35 anyone?

And any snowstorm bigger than a weak clipper is a bomb cyclone (looking at you, CNN). Usually those have some wind, even inland.

The 50-foot path between driveway and tool shed has the same effect, though closer to 4". Deep blue all morning, now solid clouds.

Had constant SN from 7:15 AM thru 11:30 PM as the temp slowly climbed from 17 to 23, finishing with 6.9" on 0.49" LE, 14:1 ratio. However, it was like 2 different storms; by 4:30 we had only 2" of tiny flakes. I didn't take a core then, but it was like walking on cornmeal, probably no higher ratio than 8:1. Then the dendrites began to look better and by 9 the total was 5.2" on 0.43" LE, probably close to 20:1. The board held 1.7" this morning with only 0.06" LE and given the fluff, the post-9 PM might've been 2" if I'd gone out at midnight. Very little wind as of now, so the fir and hemlocks are loaded.

Maybe a move to the south? Good for coastal snow, less QPF to the north?

Got down to 10 last night and was up to 18 when flakes began about 7:15. Steady small flakes and 2.0" at 2:15 and my walk to the mailbox had a feel of a somewhat low ratio. In 7 hours, the temp has risen all the way to 20. Noted that GYX has cut back the totals a bit.

GYX 90/50/10 percents for Farmington (and here) are 0.5"/7"/14". Guessing that the models remain far apart. P&C forecast is 3-5 tomorrow and 2-4 tomorrow night.