tamarack

Anyone old enough to have been wx-aware in the 1960s just snickers at the ongoing recent drought talk. 77/32 yesterday, biggest diurnal span here since 2020 (but puny compared to BML/SLK). Worked up a decent sweat while splitting wood. Gusts well into the 30s here this morning, red maple flowers from somewhere littering the porch steps.

52° is the greatest diurnal range I've recorded here, in Feb 2000 (29/-23). That month also had spreads of 49, 42 and 40. Fort Kent is the champ for my records, 38/-21 in Jan 1980 thanks to a strong (and wet) warm front. However, 2/2/76 was more spectacular, dropping 57° (46/-11) between noon and 8 PM, also 44 to -6 between 1 and 6 PM, on howling NW winds.

After stopping at 70 yesterday the temp dropped to 34 again, and we're in the mid-upper 70s - first 'forty' since last April and first 41+ since June of 2023. Bit of a breeze but we're well into a 2nd cloudless day - not a common thing in April.

Maine Med is highly regarded, especially their cardio team and the Barbara Bush children's center. PWM and nearby aren't the cheapest places to live, however.

Nearly a "forty", low of 34 and high into the low 70s.

Assuming we get nothing tomorrow night, May '24-April '25 is 92% of average. BN but not Stein-worthy.

Red and silver maples in full flower, also elms, and long catkins on the aspen. Otherwise, it's stick season still. Another 0.21" overnight, will report multi-day total of 1.10" for 25-27 after 2 days at Pittston Farm (where there were still patches of snow in the woods, not unusual for late April).

Same ecosystem as the barrens, though not quite as extensive. As for no New England urban fires, I'd recommend "Wildfire Loose: The Week Maine Burned", about the fires of October 1947. Excellent recounting (especially about BHB) but, unfortunately, no maps. 200k burned, 15 fatalities, 2 small communities in SW Maine mostly obliterated.

The Scouts rented from Rands! I'm sure they had modernized prior to Sandy - those exposed driveshafts would've had to go. My dad, older brother and I also went down there a couple times, too. We learned about greenheads the hard way. We'd come in about when the sea breeze quit and would have hands covered in fish guts while those demons took advantage of the calm.

When I was in scouting - late '50s - we stayed in Tuckerton at a camping place called Chip's Folly (and caught fluke and blowfish in Great Bay). The camp was next to an Atlantic white cedar swamp, with water that looked like very dark tea. I've since read that cedar logs from 1,000 years ago have been dredged from similar bogs and in totally sound condition, being "pickled" for a millennium.

I grew up in northern Morris County and was 17 at that fire's date. The following super-dry and warm October, a fire on state land covered ~3,000 acres and persisted thru October and into November. The land was mostly loose rockpiles and the fire would follow roots under the stuff, often popping up behind the firefighters. The fire was only 3-4 miles from my HS, and each morning we'd look north to see where the smoke was most dense that day. Our grandkids live in Gloucester County farm country, a few miles west (thankfully) of the barrens. Southern Maine has a limited but significant acreage in pitch pine barrens. The climate is booth cooler (natch) and wetter than NJ and the soils, though not especially fertile, are a lot better was well. Therefore, the pines tend to be taller and crown fires in Maine barrens very rarely reach the crowns; frequent ground fires have sustained the ecotype, though the State Tree, Eastern white pine, is a problematic invasive there.

Maybe look up April 20, 1963. The pine barrens are a fire ecotype, as the infertile sandy soil supports a pine-oak forest that's sustained by fire. Unlike most conifers, pitch pine can produce sprouts after the above-ground trees are burned, allowing the post-fire forest to remain much the same. Also, that infertility leads to late leaf out and slow decay of litter. As noted, central NJ gets more than twice the SoCal rain, but the excessively drained soil dries quickly.

Because New England has very little of the same fire-type ecosystems. The NJ pine barrens' sandy soil makes for late (and puny) green-up and slow decay of litter, along with loads of pitch pine. Almost exactly 62 years ago (4/20/63), the barrens fires covered more than 20 times the area of the current blaze - 8,500 acres at last reports.

Around here the sugar maples flower about 3 weeks later than the reds. I hope you're not looking at the early-flowering Norway maples (invasive pests). Low of 27 here, already into the 50s.

Sun finally peeking thru the clouds, will push the temp a few degrees over 60. Looks like a windy sunrise service tomorrow. 42 years ago, NW New Jersey had up to a foot of snow, with accum8ulation thru the day.

Wood frogs began "quacking" Thursday at the old stock pond near our well. Peepers joined them last evening. It's a few days to a week later than in recent springs. Cloudy and upper 40s with sprinkles here at 10:45. Forecast high is 74 but that will take some sunshine. Otherwise, we'd top out near yesterday's 62. The inside temp only dropped to 72 overnight, so no morning stove-loading for the first time since early November.

HIE has climbed 44° from their morning low of 19. TD is 10, RH 12%. IZG is 65 off their low of 22, twin 13's for TD and RH. crispy.

My 75.6" was 13" BN and it had no storms 10"+, for only the 7th time in 27 winters. After the 6.3" of 15:1 powder on 12/24, we had only 1 event over 4". The 2 biggest snows came on Thanksgiving night and Dec 4-5: great start, then fizzle. Only the sustained cold allowed decent snowpack.

My records note high dews, +/-70, for the first 4 days, upper 60s on 8/10 and mid 60s 8/19. Rest of the month the dews weren't high enough to note. Kev is correct that the late month was coolest - final 12 days had average minima of 50.8. Sunny and breezy here, feels a bit chilly after 3 mild days.

High of 62 yesterday - once the early clouds broke away, the heat was on. We missed most of the afternoon rain, getting 0.22" while Carrabassett Valley got 1.08", but about half of our rain came in the first 3 minutes, with nice fat July-like drops pounding down.

We had that cold (though extremes were modest) but the snowfall went the opposite way. 23-24 lowest temp: -12 Met winter avg: 23.8 +5.4 (mildest of 27 years) 24-25 lowest temp: -19 Met winter avg: 17.7 -0.7 (1st BN since 18-19) 23-24 snowfall: 99.0" 10.5" AN, 112% of avg, had storms of 12.4" (DEC), 22.0" (MAR) and 13.9" (APR) The 40.9" post-equinox was highest I've recorded, incl. Fort Kent. 24-25 snowfall: 75.6" 12.9" BN, 85% of avg, biggest storm 9.3".

56 yesterday, mildest so far by 4F. (But only 3.5 AN - averages warming 0.5/day now.) AM long term discussion, by Ekster/Legro, waxed a bit poetic. Fri will be a bit of a transition day as a warm front approaches from the southwest. NBM made a big shift in high temps Sat...bringing widespread 60s and 70s in the local area. However warm fronts often fail to breach the Lakes Region and often result in heartbreak for those yearning for warmer days. The upper air pattern is more favorable than normal for an advancing warm front however...with building heights and surface high pressure centered well southeast of the area. It is not a favorable set up for sustained cold air damming. To give a slight nod towards climatology I did blend in a bit of MEX guidance to knock NBM temps down a couple of degrees.

Cloudy morn turned into the nicest day of spring so far. Also released the final sticks of the firewood pile from the ice. Drained the snowblower and moved it into its warm-season home.

It was the opposite here. We'd had 24" by Dec 10, which was 14" AN for the date and which had the season's 2 biggest snowfalls. Since then, we've run 26" BN and only the fast start avoided a major ratter.

Some patches of blue! (Occasionally) It's been a gray month so far with low diurnal ranges. Highs are running 6.5° BN while lows are 0.6° AN. The weekend high was 38, low 31, some flakes (T) each day and near constant light RA.