tamarack

Looking forward to some top 10 spring wx midweek, though it doesn't meet my def of "torch" - average for this coming Wednesday is 63/38 and forecast (modified for my microsite) is about 72/42. Need 10°+ AN for a May torch. See 2001, when 5/3,4 had 20-21° AN.

Frost on Saturday/Sunday mornings.

Assuming that would be near-BDL forecast, it's a nice AN treat but hardly a furnace. May average there 2010 and forward is 73/50 so perhaps 1° cooler for next Thursday - 10° AN for the max and 5° for the min.

Not New England and 51 years ago, but I'd nominate the Little Whiteface chairlift for that title. The summit lift might've been at least as terrible, but it wasn't running when we visited during our honeymoon in June 1971. The chairs on the L.W. lift had no footrest and the lap bars were ridiculously small - 10" or less. The ride finished with a single catenary of about 2000' - per Google Earth - that seemed to rise straight up (probably closer to 60°) at the end, with a counterweight chunk of concrete nearly as big as our house. That span was way above ground, 50' and higher, with a not-trail below - trees just cut and jackstrawed, nice place to land if one fell off the chair. Can't imagine a rescue from there if the lift broke down.

My area can't get 2 rotations of carrots - not even close unless I wanted the 2-3" babies. There may be varieties that mature more quickly than the Bolero I plant, however.

It's surprising how well the roots can shape up when growing only 2" from each other. I plant carrots in a strip 5-6" wide with 10-12" between - more per sq.ft. than single-row planting.

1st and 2nd here, both mostly sunny and temps 63/27 and 64/29. Clouds moved in overnight.

It's certainly not rocket science. Years ago we were "alarmed" from our motel in North Chicago - son was graduating from Navy basic. Some doofus lit a cig in the hall at 3 AM and in less than 2 minutes we were outside in the snow. Grabbed the car keys and scooted.

Did the public launch get blocked due to invasive water plants? That's what happened at the Rt 27/Belgrade launch on Messalonskee - milfoil there.

Front loaded April AN here but w/o real warmth. Having a March day milder than any in April happens on occasion and not just in 2012. However, having April's mildest just 4° above that in February is a first-timer.

That was the case here, and it seemed most days had significant wind. April 2022: Portrait of a mega-meh month. Temps: Avg max: 51.60 -0.32 Highest: 60 on 12th/15th. This is my first April (24 yr) that failed to get milder than 60. Avg min: 30.30 +1.73 Lowest: 21 on the 5th. Only my 2nd April that didn't reach 20 or below. (23 in 2010) The 39° span is easily the smallest for April here, average is 58°. Mean: 40.93 +0.70 Tale of 2 different halves: 1-15 was 52.1/29.6 and +3.5 Sunny/PC/Cloudy days: 5/4/6 Sunny plus PC/2 = 7, or 47% sun. 16-30 was 51.1/31.0 and -2.5 Sunny/PC/Cloudy days: 1/6/8 Sunny plus PC/2 = 4, or 27% sun. Most of the windy days were also in the 2nd half. There are 6 temp items for which I keep daily extremes: high, low, mean for both warm and cold. Usually a month will establish several new extremes, but April 2022 never got close to setting any. I can't recall any other month with no new extremes. Precip: 4.90" +0.77" Wettest day: 1.00" on the 27th 2022 cumulative is 13.88", a mere 0.01" AN. Snowfall: 0.2" on the 19th plus two days with T. Average is 4.90". Season total snowfall is 67.1" which is 21" BN. SDDs were 1,518, which is 246 BN, though 37 above the median. Tallest pack was 26" on Feb. 4. That's right on the median but 3" below average.

63/27 here yesterday, mildest for the year so far and little wind. Quite the treat after Thurs-Fri with both temp and wind in the 30s at our men's retreat NW from Moosehead.

Hope you were inside. We drove thru PWM about 5:30 yesterday afternoon and it was upper 40s and spitting rain. Forecast for Pittston Parm, NW from Moosehead Lake, where I'll be from tomorrow afternoon thru Saturday lunchtime: Tonight Rain and snow, becoming all snow after 3am. Low around 31. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Thursday Snow before 10am, then rain and snow showers between 10am and 1pm, then rain showers likely after 1pm. High near 36. Northwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. Thursday Night Snow showers likely. Cloudy, with a low around 28. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. Friday A chance of rain and snow showers before 4pm, then a chance of rain showers between 4pm and 5pm, then a chance of rain and snow showers after 5pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 38. North wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Friday Night A chance of rain and snow showers before 11pm, then a chance of snow showers between 11pm and 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 31. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Saturday Mostly cloudy, with a high near 44. The bolded part of tomorrow's forecast just screams springtime. Last year it snowed there too, about 5" new with closer to 8" on the high ground near Jackman. Crummy winters trying to make up for it in late April? Another 2002?

While I don't disagree with the overall premise, I don't think the phone/social media comparison works. If I (falsely) yell "Fire!" at home, my wife and I scramble out and, other than wasted adrenalin, no harm is done. If I do that in the proverbial crowded theater, it's not quite the same. There's always tensions when freedom of speech when personal responsibility and "do no harm" come into play. As was said years ago, my right to swing my fist ends before it hits your nose.

Pole beans are a little more sensitive to cold than bush beans. In your area I'd hold off on beans until after the mid-week cutoff makes its exit. We're on the edge of z4 and z5 here - average for winter's coldest is -24.2, median 24.5. Most recent 5-year average is -25.6.

Either it's spring flowers or fall colors.

Anecdotal only and my weed experience is strictly 2nd hand smoke (especially while delivering pizza to BGR's most prestigious private college many years ago.) On my summer 1975 job as a field research assistant, my co-worker liked the stuff but never brought any on our Mon-Fri work weeks. Most of the landowners on whose woods we worked supplied grunt labor to help us in cutting/weighing the trees on research plots, and on our week near Machias the labor was young men on "work-vacation" from NYC. Thursday (their last day helping) after work they invited us to where they were staying and offered some MJ. I demurred but my chum said yes. After we got back to where our sleeping bags lived, he exclaimed how glad he was that I was driving, as the NYC grass was "the gooood stuff!" - far more potent than what came into Maine. He said that on the 10-mile drive he'd think we were going 200 mph one minute and at walking speed the next - total scramble of time perception. Maybe it was just being utterly blasted by the unexpectedly high-test weed, but he certainly wasn't fit to pilot a vehicle.

If I'm in Mass on 495 where it's 3 lanes and I'm on the middle one driving 65 if 5 Mass drivers pass me, 4 will go by on my right. Haven't seen that characteristic nearly as much elsewhere. NJ drivers on the GS Parkway are notorious for multiple-lane swerving to gain a few dozen yards. At 75 mph, that's less than one second of "gain".

If a tree shows any green, some call it fully leafed out.

Red maples blossomed a week ago here and the petals are falling. Sugar maple buds have barely begun to swell and probably won't flower until mid May. Might your "sugar maples" be Norways? Leaves are nearly indentical and Norway maple is as early as red maple.

Forecast for Lead, SD, in the Black Hills: Friday, 67 with 50% chance of showers Saturday, 26 with 10-14" and winds gusting to 49 mph, another 4-8" Saturday night.

'Fella has the right idea for lawns. We love watching 7 grandkids trample ours (when they're not climbing the apple trees).

Might be painful when the kids want to play football or frisbee.

Salad greens, carrots, peas, most brassicas should be fine there unless the soil is really soggy. All but the peas have tiny seeds subject to rot if it's too wet.

I think we're close to schedule here. April is running about 2° AN but w/o real warmth, just no cold, though we had 22 this morning, tied for month's coldest. Coldest daily mean this month is 35 and if that stands (10-to-1 it will) it would be the least cold for April's coldest in 24 years here. (4/99 bottomed at 34.5 so it's close.) Just a mini record but shows the lack of cold. Quaking aspen male catkins are fully formed, red and silver maples blossomed last week and the petals now litter the ground. Willow buds are open with some bits of green. Oak, sugar maple, ash, basswood remain at midwinter form, which is normal for the date. It's been a windy month so far but I don't know whether/how that affects spring phenology.