tamarack

First flakes didn't appear until 11:30 this morning, and by 3 PM we'd reached 1/4" - ultralight rate - and radar doesn't promise much more.

Didn't quite reach 30 here but the first sunny day since 12/26. The 2 intervening weeks featured 9 cloudy days and 5 PC - dark times. The 7" armor plate is tough enough to hold my 230 lb while wearing street shoes.

The most recent wildfire over 1,000 acres in Maine was in 1977, about 3,000 acres, nearly all in Baxter Park and in the blowdown of November 1974. With all that fully dried fuel, the fire was burning downhill on a calm night - a very uncommon fire behavior. (The Park wanted to clear out the fallen wood but was stopped by a lawsuit that claimed such action would violate Governor Baxter's deeds of trust. Only the roadside areas were cleared; the rest was a bomb waiting to explode.)

Seems colder in the Northeast thanks to the wind. Also clouds and daily max temps - here they're running 3.7° BN this month while mins are +4.5.

Well put. The storm that's shutting down ATL would be a nothingburger at ORH. I doubt that any system could cover all the angles. NESIS measures the impact of inches of snow on numbers of people and is the best system out there IMO. However, storm severity can vary by winds/drifting and by total depth including pre-storm pack. Since I live in a state with relatively few people, severe storms focused on here aren't going to score very high. As one example, the New Year's Eve 1962 storm dumped 30-45" on the Penobscot Valley and had winds gusting 60+ but is only a blip to folks outside of the impact area. That system also brought damaging NW winds (maybe the strongest I've experienced, along with Nov 1950) hundreds of miles to the SW but outside of the snowfall region. Seeing large oaks having been ripped out of semi-frozen ground illustrated the wind's power.

He might want a 'personal' rating, though his post said "general". My personal top 3, listed chronologically: Feb 3-4, 1961 NESIS 4, 7th Apr 7-8, 1982 NESIS 2, 43rd Mar 14-15, 1984 NESIS <1 First one was in NNJ, ~24" (big wind) and set depth records for NJ - ~45" at my place, 50+ to NW. Other 2 were in Northern Maine, with few people. The April event had gusts to near 60 with giant drifts, the March storm (26.5", biggest I've seen) brought depth to 65", also tops.

One example of that is Fort Kent. Anyone familiar with Aroostook snow knows that FK gets more snow on average than CAR. However, the careful measurements at the WSO plus the lackadaisical effort 40 miles to the NW show CAR as snowier by about 20". Crazy. Another sad factor is loss of co-ops. Four sites fairly close to me and with records beginning from 1886 to 1903 (Gardiner, Lewiston, Bridgton, Farmington) have gone away over the past 15 years, that last hurting the most as its records were most complete. Only 13 months missed in 130 years, only one since 1909. WVL goes back to 1893 but its snow records rival Fort Kent for under-measuring. Already gusting into the 40's up here, Were heading up towards Pittsburgh that should be a fun run.........lol Probably not a good day to go up Coburn Mountain.

Two verys? A bit much. Though I appreciate the "less so". After 26 years here, the median halfway point for HDDs is January 22, and I'd guess all of the Northeast would be close to the same even as the magnitude varies greatly. Midpoint for actual fuel use would be several days earlier as the sun offers more help as the season ages. Thru last winter our average snowfall is 89.0". Current average for snowfall is exactly half, 44.5", by Jan 31. That 1/31-2/1 split wiggles around but those periods stay within 2" of each other. (I thought other NE sites would be similar, but checked CAR and there it's front-loaded, with 55% by Jan 31.)

77 years ago (Oct 47), the Kennebunkport fire torched an island 1/2 mile out to sea. Winds were gusting into the 50s, not 60-90, and there were no slopes (obviously) to help foster the spread. 90 mph gusts might've threatened Lisbon (Portugal, not Maine). For another example of the power of wildfire, look into the destruction of Peshtigo, WI on Oct 8, 1871, a fire powered by the same winds that spread a more well-known blaze in Chicago.

I think that's consecutive days. In 1961, NYC stayed below 32 from Jan 20 thru Feb 3, 16 days in which the high was 29 and the low -2. Also, though the punctuation is ambiguous, the 15 days in 2015 may be the 2nd place run; 1961 being tops (as it is at Central Park).

We had 40.9" post-equinox. Even Fort Kent never had that much in any of our 10 springs there. Storms were 5", 22" and 13.9". The big dog also dumped 6"+ from 9-10:30 PM, heaviest non-squall rate I've seen.

As a weather enthusiast: Bring it on! As a forester: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

In 1996 my wife had surgery for a rotator tear and joint impingement that required shaving some bone. Pain management was awful and she was in agony for most of a week. About 5 years later she slipped on ice at the L.L. Bean store in Freeport, ramming that shoulder into a parking barrier. Same surgeon "cleaned up the mess" (his term) and a pain pump was installed - tiny capillary tube that administered pain med 2 mm/hour for 2 days. It was a world of difference, hardly any pain at all. (Soon after, they had to stop that practice as the teeny nozzles popped off a couple times and had to be fished out thru another surgery. Maybe they've fixed that problem?)

Totally different ecosystems. Florida is dead flat and once the pines lose their lower branches there's no fuel ladder to the top. Mid-size pines have bark that can withstand a quick fire of grass and pine straw, and that kind of fire gets stopped by a 5-foot firebreak. The resinous chaparral in SoCal always has a fuel ladder, and when that stuff is burning uphill on 45° slopes, 500 feet of firebreak isn't enough. More sun than expected today though clouds are coming. Gusts around 30, chilly but not damaging. The 1" of slop from New Year's Day is getting worn and turned to ice. May need to spread some more ashes.

After my first shoulder injury (1998) the ortho doc told me that the shoulder is the most complex (and troublesome) joint on the body. Both of mine are functional but weakened; when I was a freshman in college, I tossed a baseball 270 feet. It's doubtful I could reach 70 today, even throwing downwind. However, both knees are bone-on-bone, and the left one is far worse than the right. This coming Tuesday I meet with the ortho team in town to discuss possible replacement. As a long-time co-worker said years ago, "Getting old isn't for sissies."

Daughter's in-laws live in GSP, and upstate SC looks to get hammered, probably ice atop snow.

Family had just moved from DEC to SNJ and we'd driven down to visit. #1 was a whiff at home while #2 was forecast for 12-16, twice as much as any snowfall the grandkids had seen. We chose to delay the northward trip - experience the kids in a big dump or drive thru the blizzard, easy choice. SN was expected by 6 PM on the 26th and I was up 4 times overnight to see how much had fallen. First flakes came at 7 AM, last ones by 11, and by 2:30 the 1.5" was gone. What a fail. No problems on the drive home until we reached our driveway. We'd gotten 20" of 9:1 sand at sub-10° temps and the stuff would shift under our feet rather than compress, making the wade to our steps more interesting. Two fails in two days, losing the would-be SNJ dump and missing the best January snowstorm I ever would've seen at home. (We had 20" of powder on Jan 19-20, 1961 [JFK inaugural] but with light winds and much less LE.) Least snowy January here is 5.1" in 2014. Though today is only the 8th, I see a possible challenge to that mark.

The 1998 ice storm may have caused serious damage over the greatest area of any such event, as it turned off the lights from Montreal to Downeast Maine. It also featured a south-to-north temp and wx sequence of the most different conditions I've noted: NYC and environs: RA and 50s-60s SNE: Cold RA, upper 30s and 40s Southern Maine: Near 32 with RA and moderate ice. Central Maine and Downeast (>10 miles inland): Catastrophe, ice 1.5-3" thick, temps 30 or a bit lower Maine foothills: Serious ice but much of the 2-3" precip was IP. Mid-upper 20s. Far north: 18-25" of 8-to-1 sand, temps from singles (Allagash) to low 20s (CAR). Two examples of nearby but different conditions: Our 0.8-acre house lot in Gardiner (C.Maine) had more tree damage than on the entire 63 forested acres on our New Sharon (foothills) woodlot - moved there 4 months after the ice. MWN recorded their highest January temp ever (since tied) while Gorham had cold RA. In between, mainly at 1500-2500' asl, massive destruction.

1979-80 was the least snowy of our 10 winters in Fort Kent, but that pig stuck in the Maritimes reminds me more of 2009-10. Thru today's date in 2010 our snowfall was 10" above season-to-date but other than some advisory snow on MLK weekend and one WINDEX in late month, winter was cooked, actually, overcooked. The overhead echoes finally produced enough flakes to have a few come flying by the window, along with increasing wind.

Echoes overhead but no flakes reaching the ground. Grandkids' locale in SNJ had 4-6 forecast, got 2-3 while Cape May - 50 miles SSE - had 6-10. At least it's cold so the kids can wear out the snow before it melts. Maybe the late week thing can freshen the white, though currently the PoP is higher at DCA/BWI.

We'll just be spectators here, like 2006, 2010, 2016.

Caught early, at the first small sign of blonding, some trees can be saved through injection of a systemic pesticide. It's costly, so only appropriate for highly valued specimen trees. A huge old ash in the town park might be an example. The trees in your pic are, unfortunately, far beyond saving.

Looks like white ash infested with emerald ash beetle, with woodpeckers dining on some of the larvae, causing the "blonding" that can be the first sign of the insects' presence.

36" where I grew up in NNJ, 6" in the snowy Maine foothills. Feb 2021 redux?

At least we have some sun, though clouds are appearing to the west - more sun today than the previous 9 days' total. No wind at the moment but the near-constant breezes in recent days have brought daily highs occurring in late evening, with dawn temps running a few degrees less cold. Odd diurnal pattern.