tamarack

Still have 17" at the stake and will likely have a foot or more remaining when/if the snow arrives late week. Walked the dog thru our woodlot on the sled trail and she was only sinking an inch or 2 when wandering outside the groomer path. I sampled the snow off trail, got about 20' while sinking 3-4" then dropped past mid-calf, requiring a retreat. My weight has dropped 25 lb over the past 3 years - eating less - but I'm still well above 200, so our pack is really solid.

Or in a CAD kingdom. Thanks to the early month snow/QPF, February's SDDs should finish close to our average, unless Friday's event either runs away south or overperforms here.

The Maine peaks look more like the Greens than like the Dacks/Whites. (Except for Katahdin which looks like nothing else in the East.)

If we can grab 7" or more by month's end, February will have AN snow and at least 5° AN temp. A bit harder to have March with AN snow and way AN temp, but not impossible.

Would be nice if that were US Rt 2.

Love the little blue scoop for central/midcoast Maine, so LEW/Pit 2/MBY shows less than points S/W/N/E. Of course, it won't verify quite like that, but it makes me wonder what computer gymnastics can produce a snow hole for SR compared to all around it.

Brings back long-ago memories of my 1971 ski week at the old Glen Ellen. Super deal for January, half-price just $22.50 bought 5 days of skiing, 5 lessons and 2 apres-ski parties with a movie and gluwein. Got my skis latched on about an hour before the class level sorting was scheduled, so I rode the mountain lift and took the long traverse to the west slopes, intending to ski the advanced beginner trail. Missed it and ended on an advanced intermediate trail named Hoot Mon, a Scottish exclamation, and I said that and worse as I crashed over and over again. The trail was steep icy moguls with wind-slab powder in the hollows, far beyond my skill. The remaining $80 in traveler's checks parted company somewhere on that hill, and being dressed like a Jerseyite on one's first visit to VT I was sweating profusely by the time I climbed back to the base. However, it worked out for the good. I was initially put in advanced stem but there were too many in that class, so they asked if any of us had gone up the mountain lift and 2 of us thusly got bumped to beginning parallel, which was a blessing. Sled trail thru the fields in Farmington Falls looks deadly, uncontrollable without picks. Some roads look the same as runoff froze overnight.

Only dropped from 22" to 18" here, but we've had some pack-settling thaws that Jackman probably avoided.

I'd nominate February 1981. My Fort Kent home, then in town at about 550' elev, had 21" on 2/1 and then dropped to zero on 2/22. CAR's February max from 1939 thru 1980 was 49. In 1981 they tied that record twice and exceeded it 7 times, with the month finishing 14.7° AN. They had 11 days with departures of +21 to +29, quite a change from the 33° BN temp and -16 max on January 4. Their 28" pack on 2/1 went to zero on the 23rd. The ice ran on both the Allagash and the St. John, the latter tipping Priestly Bridge into the water, cutting off the St.-Pamphile sawmills from much of their resource area. None of the older folks from the area had ever seen the rivers run before late March. Sharp frontal passage here about 7:45. Winds abruptly backed to NW with brief gusts to mid 30s - 15-25 otherwise. Temp dropped 8° from 7:30 to 8 and by 8:30 skies were PC. Only 0.17" when I emptied the bucket at 8 and no more than a couple cents after that. Lost only 4" pack thanks to the less than expected RA. now at 18". Will need lots of wood ashes on the driveway, though I'll wait a bit for the wind to settle before trying to spread the stuff without it all blowing away.

That's true on the state highways here, but most of the smaller towns depend on sand - actually a 16:1 mix with salt.

Max depth there in 68-69 was 32", not quite 20% of Pinkham's pack. MWN has only reached 40" on 6 days, 3 each for 1956 and 1970 with 42" the tallest in '70. Even that is remarkable given the site.

For cold, yes, with 3 months between a mini-Grinch on Dec 20-21 until the warm rain at the equinox. However, we had only 76% of avg snow, which disqualifies it in my mind. Suppression city, with only the mid-Nov and early Jan events showing up here in good form.

Between N. Conway and Phin there's Pinkham Notch, where the late Feb storm dumped 77" and brought the pack to 164", almost certainly the greatest recorded depth east of the Rockies. They also had 3 storms of 29-31", one each for Dec, Feb and March, for a winter total of 323" and 10,545 SDDs. MWN had 97.8" in the big dump and 559" for the season but only 2,951 SDDs, as nearly all their snow landed in Tucks.

Their P&C had my area with all snow Tues-Tues night, 70% PoP, then mix on Wednesday. AFD had the battle front working to the south after that. Would be nice. Low 50s here but barely an ich loss of pack; it's quite solid. Also more cloud than sun plus some shade on the stake site. Mildest New England site in GYX 1 PM obs was PSM at 63. SFM/IZG headed for 60+ as well.

Only in Fort Kent did we approach wall-to-wall winters. 76-77 was probably the closest, with a thaw in early November thru some sunny 50s in the 2nd week of March. There was a snow-to-rain event on 12/7 but the temp topped out at 37 with a net gain in depth, so not much of a speed bump. Five years later there was a mild (+7.6°) December with rain on 6-7, but that was followed by 40"+ snow by the 31st. The final week of March had two 50+ days but little precip and winter returned big time in April. At our present locale, even a two-month run of pure winter is uncommon.

89" here, would need another 39". Only 5 of 23 snow seasons have met that goal here.

Thru today we're 7.6" below ytd average. Only need another 2.3" to pass 20-21, however. (A very low bar.) Chilly -12 this morning, might've gone for 20 had the cirrus not moved in.

Also ticks, black flies and deer flies.

Forecast for Estcourt Station: Thursday Night Snow. Low around 9. Wind chill values as low as -4. North wind 14 to 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 9 to 13 inches possible. Friday Snow before noon, then a chance of snow showers between noon and 2pm, then a slight chance of snow after 2pm. High near 12. Northwest wind 10 to 18 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible. Meanwhile the other end of the state may be 50° milder on Thursday night, as February's rollercoaster ride continues.

GYX mets have called it the VD massacre - blizzard-warned 12-18" for our area turned to 1.5". Machias had 24.4" and reached 74" pack - at 20' asl on the coast. Places like Caribou and Rangeley have never reached that depth.

Snowfall 7.6" BN as of today with grim prospects for more thru the middle of next week. After a cold January with snow about average, February has been quite the rollercoaster, with days ranging from 17° BN to 22° AN. Yesterday's 8° BN left the month's average at +4.9. By Saturday morning it may be +6.

Looks bad with many hours of high TD rain, though fortunately not a huge deluge on current forecasts - <1". The 22" pack here is crusty but far from ripe, so I'd guess we'll still have 16-18" come Saturday. Another thaw midweek, though perhaps with low dews. Will it snow again this month? 16" in the first 8 days then flurries only for the next 20? And last year we had only 1.7" after February - it's got to be better than that.

Afternoon high on 3/6/07 was -2 here, spoiled by a cheap 19° at my obs time the evening before. The 8th was 7/-22 for the coldest March mean we've had here and the -23 on the 9th was winter's coldest. Ten years later March 4 had an afternoon max of 2° and on the 11th the afternoon topped out at zero, setting the stage for the Pi Day blizzard.

Might that encourage the critters to eat their own eggs before you can gather them? The SNJ branch of our family won't put their hen's eggshells in their food, though shells from the few store-bought eggs get oven-sterilized and thence to the henhouse. For locally-laid eggs, the shells go in compost. Over-conservative?

A bit surprising that hardwood pellets didn't work well. When Maine Forest Service put pellet stoves in a few of their regional stations ~15 years ago, they had good results with a Quebec product - pure sugar maple made with edgings/trimmings from a furniture factory.