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Everything posted by tamarack
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Have you (GYX) contacted BPL recently. A well planned timber harvest could remove the taller trees while leaving the land's use unchanged, just with younger/shorter ones. a solution that would be temporary but the Bureau would be able to repeat it as needed. Beyond that, would NWS propose a purchase of sufficient acreage on the hill to avoid the treetop issue, as the importance of the site would IMO have a good chance of gaining the necessary 2/3 supermajorities required. Since 1993 there have been many land transactions thus approved, including the sale of several hundred acres just north of your facility.
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Maine forest managers plant relatively few acres, as most of the state's high timber value species are adapted to regenerate naturally. Yale Silviculture Professor emeritus David Smith called it the "Magic Forest" due to that ability. The difference between the 500k and the 2500+ acres of the corridor is that the 500k will be managed for forest products while the corridor will be kept clear of anything that might get tall/thick enough to approach the lines or hinder maintenance access. I'll add that I was also disappointed by passage of Question 3, which I opposed due to its incomplete pig-in-a-poke (perhaps literally) language. Will the good folks on Munjoy Hill (PWM) be happy when the folks next door start raising pigs? Will this amendment create issues for addressing animal abuse? The bill made no attempt to cover those and related topics.
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The link is the best explanation I've read on the issue. However, its discussion of the Public Lands portion failed to go back far enough. In 1993 Constitutional Amendment 164 was approved by 73% of those voting in a citizen referendum. Among other things this amendment reads that any such lands "...may not be reduced or its uses substantially altered except on the vote of 2/3 of all the members elected to each House." I've not read the decision on Black v. Cutko by the Superior Court judge, but my guess is that he agreed that changing commercial timber land to a powerline corridor met that "substantially altered" language. Question 1 language includes the (obvious to me) statement that things like powerline corridors, RR rights-of-way and airport runways are substantial alterations of use on the Public Lands. (Trivia note: The impetus for that amendment came when the Bureau of Public Lands [since re-named Bureau of Parks and Lands] sold 2 acres of "scarce S. Maine public land) to NWS for its new office, sited a couple hundred feet from its NEXRAD facility, which facilitated replacing the totally inadequate office and WW2 radar at the jetport.) The linked article also confirms that Maine was chosen over some other options because it was a cheap date, at least when the not-performed EIS was left out of the equation.
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Looking to the north, that 75-100 blue in the St. John Valley is bogus, a product of wonky measurements IMO. In my 9 full winters there FK ran 20" below CAR and any snow-conscious resident in FK would laugh at that. My measurements in 5 in-town winters, 4 within 1/2 mile of the co-op site and maybe 15' higher elev., ran 24" above that co-op and 8" more than CAR. The 4 back settlement years at 970' averaged 26" more than CAR and 51" beyond the FK co-op. One-a-day measuring that sometimes seemed to be based more on pack change than new snow is my guess at the reason. Also, the land above 1000' N and W from Allagash should be the orange or maybe the burgundy. Areas near/above 1300' must've had 50% more than my back settlement 171" in 1983-84 based on what we found working there thru that winter. (Disclosure: My measuring technique there was the same as I've used at my current location for the past 23 winters, where I average 1-2" less than the Farmington co-op 6 miles to my west.)
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Nearly 15" at water's edge from Logan. Probably a memory blank with everything else that was going on.
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As our O-line coach in HS would say when a pulling guard went left instead of right, "You only missed by one!" That dew vs. snow equation might've been hit last winter, the only time it's even been close: 52.5" for the snow season with a rainy max of 54 on 12/25/20, might be close.
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Probably will continue right up to closing time at the polls.
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Meant to comment earlier on this pic from a forester's perspective. One big lone aspen, a species that won't grow in the shade, amidst the shade-tolerant beech, yellow birch and sugar maple. Maybe established back in the earliest days of Stowe?
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Somebody was in the right place at the right time. (And of course, trends aren't absolutes.)
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Only things I've noted, and less(but not zero) for bucks than does, are heavy rain and 60+ temps. The first cancels the critters' hearing and smelling, the 2nd keeps them in the evergreens during the day rather than be out in the warm sun with their winter overcoats. High winds make the deer jumpy but I don't think it inhibits their plans much.
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When Burleson tore his rotator cuff in August (IIRC) 1978, it began the Sox' disaster that ended with Bucky Dent. Of course, correlation isn't causation.
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Stats for October: Avg. temp: 48.74 +3.77 Highest: 73 on 12 & 13. @nd mildest of 24 Octobers, 0.01" above 2007 but 2.37 below 2017. (Would take either following winter.) Avg. high: 57.94 +2.72 Avg. low: 39.55 +4.83 Almost every month recently has milder minima than maximum when compared to average. Precip: 4.04" -1.59 Had 2.18" on 10/31. Snow: Zero Of 24 Octobers here, 6 have had measurable snow and 4 more have had traces.
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After yesterday's 0.14" of showers and dz, we had 1.95" between 9 last evening and 8 this AM. Looks like another 2 tenths before the end. Saw amounts between 6" and 7" in south-coastal Maine (6.88" tops) and my 2.09" for cocorahs failed to make the first page - about 60th of 101 reports.
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Running +3.6 at my place, will be either 2nd or 3rd mildest in our 24 years here, though more than 2° behind 2017.
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Wxeye and Backedge both. Our climate here can't be too different from theirs, and while our big oak is only 1/3 shed, the aspens have only have handfulls of leaves remaining and everything else is sticks except a small beech, the other overwinter leaf-clinging species.
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The 2/15-16/1958 storm gave NYC 7.9" of powder and the 17th had a high of 10°. Probably windy as well though I only recall the winds during the snow. On the evening of 3/19 that year we (dad, older bro, me) were at a drizzly Newark AP awaiting mom and little bro. Their bumpy FL to DC flight had to skip the Capital as DCA was closed due to fog so the nice dinner flight from there to Newark disappeared. Mom heard talk of Newfoundland but after some circling the Connie found a home at (then) Idlewild, followed by mom, 2 suitcases and an overtired 4-y.o taking a taxi to Newark. After midnight on the way home we hit snow, which continued all the next day and thru the night into 3/21, piling up ~24" of 30-32° paste - looked the same depth as 3/18-19/56 which my dad measured at 23.5" with snow still accumulating a bit. NYC recorded 11.8" at temps 31-33. (My younger brother made no friends when the airplane hit turbulence from the storm south of DC and he asked mom "When are we going to crash?" In those days, almost every TV drama that showed folks flying showed a plane crash, or at least sufficiently often to impress the little twerp. He thought it was included as part of the ticket price.) Edit: The cold snap in Dec 1962 was memorable as beginning with 4" snow (2.7" NYC) at our NNJ home, followed by 5 days with highs teens/low 20s. It was the week of NJ's 6-day firearms deer season and I would go into the woods after school. On that Thursday, coldest day of the run, I found the pump-action shotgun frozen shut when I tried to unload at the end of legal shooting time. I bent down to blow into the action but leaned a bit too low and both lips were instantly attached to the steel. Fortunately I had just enough sense to freeze (pun intended) in place and puff like a steam engine until the action was thawed, allowing a safe disconnect and unloading.
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25-26 here, put 0.1" ice on the water in the washtub. Time to dump it.
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Nearby places had 8-10" in that 1957 storm - odd that I have no memory on it. (Though the 24" paste Bomb on 3/21-22/58 may have wiped the earlier snow from my mind. And/or the windy and cold February storm, 15-18", which I do recall.) Only 2-3" in that 1958 event.
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October Discussion: Bring the Frost-Hold the Snow
tamarack replied to 40/70 Benchmark's topic in New England
Once you're out of the built-up section of Skowhegan one can roll, slowing for Solon/Bingham and the nasty curves just north of the latter. The road north of there grows some frost heaves as winter goes on but the log trucks run 70+ if the pavement isn't icy. Some truth in the joke about the PQ driver stopped for speeding on the interstate south of WVL. "But officer, the sign says 95 and I was only 5 mph over." After being instructed that it was a route number not a speed limit, he added, "I'm sure glad you didn't catch me on 201!" -
Maybe it's precise location, but in my NNJ days only 1960 featured a snowfall that was bigger (way bigger) than moderate during the 1st half of December. 1966 had a 31-32° dump of 7" on 12/13 that was gone in 24 hours but that's probably #2 for 12/1-15 from when I became aware of snowfall size about 1954 until moving north in early 1973.
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That 3/18-22/2012 run blew away all time March heat records here, but 3/2010 was 0.64° milder. Early March 2012 we had a -10 morning and then some sub-freezing highs after the heat. March 2010 never got below 11° and featured 28 days with AN temps. Super heat trumped by lack of cold.
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Saw 25 at BML. Cloudy and near 40 for the low here unless there was some clearing during the wee hours. And those computer-generated P&C forecasts, while useful, often have false precision - like identifying a one-hour window for snow showers two days out.
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We had that set-up installed in April of 2020 after 6-7 outages October-April 19-20, 13KW genny with two 100-gal propane tanks. We were getting too old to continue camping out in our own home. After all those outages that cold season we've run the system very little (of course), 10 hours in late Sept 2020 and little beyond testing otherwise. Would've had a 5-hour run this past April but the close lightning strike a month earlier had ruined the transfer wiring. Took out the indoor DirecTV connection as well. Thankfully not the external wire from the roof-mounted dish. Reminds me of my dad buying a snowblower following the 100"+/three-blizzard 60-61 winter in NNJ. 1961-62 brought maybe 25" with no events above 6". Didn't have a blower-worthy storm until Jan 1964.
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Cashes Ledge was reporting 23-24-foot waves this afternoon. Also, Mt. Desert Rock had 50+ kt NE winds while George's Bank was reporting 4-6 kt SE breeze.
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Only 10 of my 75 years were in homes w/o a wood-burner - fireplace 1950-71 and wood stoves since mid-May 1977. What else would a forester (or his parents) do?