tamarack

Colder than the Maine foothills.

Fake snow and fake cold. Except the fake snow looks great and the skis slide over it nicely. And the battery in my pickup doesn't realize the cold is fake when I start the vehicle.

And bomb cyclone, atmospheric river, supercell - all those catchy click-bait terms.

How about a not-miserable boomer at 75? This season is establishing new lateness records for temps, but if there's snow for the grandkids over Christmas it's a win. (Plus the fun of managing 11 people, 4 male 7 female, on a single bathroom. )

For the 4th time this month the temp stopped right at two-zero without ever dipping underneath. Even with yesterday's 33° max the temp just hasn't been able to drop. All the CAA this fall has included too much continued wind. Maybe tonight. As for snow, our locale might be neatly bracketed, missing both the Friday frontal action and Monday's coastal. Deja vu all over again.

If the wind slows down - already under 30 here. Prior to this year the latest date for 1st sub-20 was Nov. 15 in 2014. Other late dates were 11/11 in 2007 and 11/12 in 2018. All good winters here. Earliest was Oct. 15 in 2002. Other early dates are 10/17 in 2009 and 10/19 in 2015. Not so good winters here. We'll await what 1st sub-20 on 11/23 or 11/24 means. Probably nothing

Numbers r us (though not in the same class as Will or Unc.W)

Worst snow winter I've had here, but a lot worse in VT, especially the northern half. However, for a one-event scenario, 12/25/20 is incredibly anomalous. Van Buren was 41° AN for that event. Not many 40+ departures out there.

Looked at CAR/Ft. Kent/Van Buren - all 3 had heavy RA on 12/14-15/19, light snow on 12/22 then about 0.2" cold RA on 12/27 before winter returned on NYE. At my foothills site there was 1.65" in the rainstorm and a nice 6" event on 12/17-18. That one stayed too far south to help Aroostook. Other than the small event on 12/27 (which was mostly snow at VB) I can't find the just-before-Christmas event. I also don't have up to date numbers for southern Aroostook or northern Penobscot. Last Christmas's Grinch will, one hopes, stand alone for awfulness. It's my greatest December rainstorm and at 29° AN, the greatest positive departure I've recorded here for any date, slightly ahead of 3/22/12. CAR was +35 that day. As bad as it was in those places, the real bummer was for folks watching 20-30" disappear in a few hours.

12/2019 had a nice pack up there early in the month but the RA on 14-15 wrecked it. Then it was mostly dry until NYE.

Just went to GYX and got the 10 AM AFD for yesterday, so I hit the #2 version and got 10 AM today. #3 was the 5 AM AFD for today. Weird.

Not the biggest snowfall of my experience, more like 20th, but the most powerful blizzard by far. Also the absolute best positive bust I ever expect to see. On the evening of 4/6, with snow headlines to the south and an OTS forecast for N. Maine, CAR upgraded its cloudy-cold-windy forecast to add flurries. By 2 AM we had S+ in Fort Kent, the wind howled for 2 days and our Chevette (little car, but it was black) had just one hand-size bit in view, within a drift. CAR measured 26.3", at the time its biggest snowfall on record. (It's now 4th.) Some "flurries". 1981-82 had 185.8" snow, a January morning with -34° and wind 30-35 with light snow, "All roads north of Houlton are impassible" in late Feb (not true but intended to keep more people from needing rescue) and other goodies.

0.35" of 33-37° RA from ~9:30 last evening thru 10 this AM. A bit surprised that there was no IP at the start as it was closer to 32 than 33 when I was out with the dog at 10 last night. Very November-y day.

Best 12/25 event I've seen. 1978 in Ft. Kent had the same 8" (and another 8.5" thru sunrise on 12/27) but much of that earlier 12/25 accum came after dark. 2017 was all in daylight.

8 AM limit and I try not to run noisy equipment at all on Sundays - personal conviction only - though I'll snowblow so we can get out to church. Would fire up the chainsaw if that was needed for egress, too.

And 12/22. We were too far north for the 19-20 event but got 15.5" on 21-22, one of only 4 events in 23 winters here to meet blizzard criteria. Was great fun driving my son to Farmington at storm's height for his 11-7 graveyard shift at Big Apple. All he did that time was stock shelves and watch the snow - maybe 3 customers in 8 hours.

We had exactly 20° three times Nov 4-7, haven't been below 23 since. Mildest for Novie's coldest temp is 17, in 2 different years. 16 of 23 have gone below 10° and 7 have reached zero or below. Can we get a November than fails to reach the teens? Average minimum for 11/30 is 20°.

Counted a handfull of flakes just now, first ones I've actually seen this season. Yesterday's cloudy 44 max was archetypical November wx. (And the clouds hung around until after the eclipse - makes 4 consecutive lunar eclipses behind clouds here. Really hope April 8, 2024 is clear.) Edit, Saturday morning: Scattered graupel on the leaves, first time even a "T" on the ground. Wife hit a white-out in Strong (next town north of Farmington) yesterday afternoon.

Heavier stuff all staying to my south. Not that 20 flakes is all that much better than the 4-5 I saw earlier.

Our first house in Fort Kent, circa 1900 (had newspaper articles about the Boxer Rebellion inside one wall) had glass fuses, a main panel with a 4-fuse drop box (in use) that fed a 2nd such drop box, not currently in use. Lacking real tools, I used a screwdriver and plug-in light bulb to test whether box #2 was hot. A loud blue flash ensued, also arc-welded both objects to the box, fortunately no longer touching each other. My electrical engineer dad guessed I'd drawn the entire 100-amp service with that stunt. If my current Husky 353 dies the next chainsaw will be on batteries. Given our snowfall here, I think an electric snowblower is years away. As for electric vehicles, maybe when high-clearance critters are available on my retirement income, or when the new smaller-than-new-Ranger hybrid has enough years that a used one is priced reasonably.

Average is a couple inches but what's the median - can be more realistic in November snow expectation. Average here is 4.9" but median is 2.6. Oct-Nov average is 5.6": but the median is that same 2.6". In 2006 we had our 1st measurable on Dec. 7 and only 11" total thru Jan. 13. Then got 84" rest of the way. Had zilch for Oct. '17 and only 0.1" for Novie, finished with 116% average thanks to the big March. (Definitely a 4th winter month at this latitude.)

Ask them to paint the house gray, or dull green?

Counted a handfull of flakes just now, first ones I've actually seen this season. Yesterday's cloudy 44 max was archetypical November wx. (And the clouds hung around until after the eclipse - makes 4 consecutive lunar eclipses behind clouds here. Really hope April 8, 2024 is clear.)

Mid 40s under full clouds. CAD can be either good or bad.

Other then the kids (grandkids generally visit after leaf-moving time) that's a precise description of what I do, rake the heavy places into piles, move them onto the 12x10 canvas tarp my FIL bought at Morsan's (NNJ, probably long defunct) 50+ years ago, haul to garden. Had to pile down short of the garden this year because the leaves fell before the tomatoes got killed, a first for here. Later I dug part of the carrots and moved leaves to mulch the rest for overwintering. Fresh carrots in April are a real treat and Bolero (from Johnny's) are super storers. Edit: Obviously DIT = "most".