tamarack

Nicest TS of the year, though in a normal thunder season it would be garden variety at best. Some 20s gusts at the start and lightning from 4:45-5:30 PM at 10-12 flashes per minute, about 4x more frequent than anything else this year, and 6 seconds was the closest. Then occasional showers thru midnight with 0.97" total, apparently tops for Maine cocorahs, an odd position for this site. Still have not seen an actual bolt since last Sept and the only strikes closer than one mile were the two random hits (including the fir fracturer) last March.

Wait 50 years and assume the current rate of warming and you might be close. We'll have >50% leaf drop by mid-Oct and by late month only the oaks will hold more than 1/4 of their leaves. Showing significant (and dull) change here on maple/ash/basswood but only on leaves <25' from the ground. Treetops remain mostly green. Sept temp now 0.1° BN, will likely climb to AN in the days to come. Sept RA of 4.14" is already 1/2" above the full month average - not sure how that will affect timing and vividness.

Warm front action stayed well north - saw some 60+ pixels a few miles west of CAR at 8 this morning and FVE reported 1.08" since 2 AM, likely most in the 6-8 window. Our turn this afternoon? (For the area - my particular locale seems to fend off any suggestion of severe.)

Median date for 1st frost here is 9/19. I'm guessing it will be at least a week later this year.

That was one of 3 large snowstorms in which Farmington reported way more than I had. VD07 was another, with my 15.5" dwarfed by their 23.0", with an even bigger difference in LE, 3.06" to my 1.80". Their 2.68" on the 14th is their 2nd greatest calendar day precip in February, behind a 3.25" rainstorm in 1900. The 2/5-6/01 storm also had a big difference in LE, with 2.35" in Farmington and 1.39" at my place. Those 2 might be legit despite the variance, but I remain very skeptical about the 3rd, 12/6-7/2003. The respective numbers for each place are below. Farmington 12/6 22 8 1.01" 14.0" 14" 12/7 23 20 1.95" 26.0" 40" My place 6 miles to the east 12/6 20 5 0.43" 6.0" 6" 12/7 22 18 1.20" 18.0" 22" My obs time was 9 PM and theirs midnight and since it was puking snow at 9 it's likely I had ~12" by 12, making their 14 believable. However, that would men that while I had ~12" on 12/7, they got 26" and IMO that dog won't hunt. Other stations in the general area were 23-34" (Rangeley, 1,050 higher with orographic enhancement, reported 40) and we were at our church 1.5 miles SE from the co-op site and maybe 100' higher within an hour of final flakes, and the snow in the church lot (most had not yet been plowed yet) looked about the same as at our house. I can buy 30" but I think the co-op had some drifting - that storm is one of the 4 here that met all the blizzard criteria.

2/5-6/01 was a great 17" storm but I don't think it ever reached 2"/hr much less 4. We were probably 70+ miles north of the 5"/hour stuff. It was also notable for a near "tragedy" - I was about to run the snowblower up the path to our dog's tie-out but decided to walk in and free him from something under the snow first. 2 steps into the path and a partridge burst out of the snow, beating its wings against my leg. Might've been messy if I'd used the machine. 12/29-30/16 might be a contender but I was sleeping for most of the heaviest - 17.5" in 7 hours, 21.0" total. That Feb 2009 storm had 18" in 7.5 hours, beginning with the 9 in 2:45 noted above, so it's likely that the 2016 dump had some 3"/hour or more at some point. Much farther north, the 26.5" storm of 3/14-15/84 had several hours of 3"/hour in the middle of the day and the 18.5" bust* about 5 weeks earlier all fell in 9-10 hours so also may have cracked the 3"/hour barrier. *Forecast was 1-3" so the plow crews for the school parking lots had slept in, awaking too late to clear the snow and causing the one and only full-day school closure in our 10 years in Fort Kent. They also closed school after a half day during the March monster, sending the buses out during that midday dumpage, some having kids 30 (hilly/curvy) miles away, and all made it safely.

Just IMO, but I'd up the thresholds a bit, to +10 and +15, though north/inland tends to have more variability than less north/inland. Average max at summer's height here is 76 and when it gets to 85+ it's torchy, though the less common 80/70 is plenty uncomfortable. Average max at depth of winter is 25, and I can't think "torch" with temps in the 30s.

Also very well described, with emphasis on the importance of knowing when to retreat.

It certainly brought most NNJ stations to their deepest pack on record, generally by a foot or more. My guess for our place in NNJ is 45" but my only "measure" was my friend and I thinking we could wade thru it the 2000 feet to the nearby reservoir. Sinking in past our navels (with plenty of dense snow still underfoot), we made it about 100 yards before common sense returned. At the time I was 5'8" and he was an inch taller. I've yet to observe 4"/hr snowfall except perhaps for 15 minutes in a Fort Kent snowsquall. Tops for siggy length is the 9" in 2:45 (10 PM-12:45 AM) from the dump of 24.5" on2/22-23/2009. Reading about the 4/5/6" rates makes me wonder if I'm a bit too far north/inland to connect with those death bands.

Farther north, central/western Maine (LEW/Gardiner/Farmington/Bridgton) all had a heatwave on those same dates in 1895. Farmington recorded 100 on 9/22 but I'm skeptical of some of their warm-season maxima 1893-97. However, Bridgton reached 95, LEW 96 and to the northeast, Orono had 97 (but only 2 days 90+).

EWR 13.7", and Paterson 17.5", Midland Park 20" (10 and 15 miles NW of Central Park, respectively. Feb 3-4 was bigger but similar - 17.4" NYC, 22.6" EWR, 22.7" Paterson. (MidPk missing)

I've read that the late October storm that took 2 lives on Katahdin in 1963 was the remains of a hurricane. Ripogenis Dam had 19" of wet snow (low 30s, 2.75" LE) at 965'. The 2 fatals (woman stuck on a ledge and ranger from Chimney Pond who went to help) were at over 4,000' and facing north.

It's 50 years ago when a (later) co-worker was stationed at the AFB in western Long Island. Another AF buddy was driving in on the Long Island Expressway when he had a flat. Went back to the trunk and was freeing up the spare when he heard a noise up front, and walked around to see the hood up and a guy fiddling with something. Guy said "That's cool; you get the spare and I'll get the battery!"

That phenomenon was helped by NYC reporting oddly low snowfall for the 1958 storm, 5.9" on 2/16 and 7.9" total, with temps/LE making significant p-type issues a low probability. EWR had 13.3", PHL 13.0", BDL 11.6", inland NJ 16-21", BOS 19.4". (Trivia: That was my 2nd of 7 storms 18-24" 3/56 thru 2/61. Never since experienced such a flock of huge storms, though we had 5 events 15.5-21.0" from 12/16 thru 3/18, 6 if the start point is 1/15.)

Finished with 1.50", 0.25" by 7 AM yesterday, 0.42" in spurts during the day then 0.83" between 9 PM and 4 AM. SEP now at 3.17", a tenth more than ultra-cloudy August and 3/10" above the May-June combo. Saw some 3"+ downeast and a couple 6-7" reports (CHH was one) on the cape.

Had not heard of the cat-converter stealing ring. However back about 25 years or so there was some tree rustling being done, mostly in the Midwest and especially with black walnut. Thieves would attach big mufflers to their chainsaws, and homeowners would wake up to see just stumps along the driveway.

Average at best here - had some issues with fungus on the beans (though mostly after a planting had been picked) and on the spaghetti squash vines. Oddly, the cukes right next to those vines are fine, though yield is BN. Carrot tops look lush. The white fungus on the beans began in late July; the month's RA was 2" AN but it was the endless cloudiness of July/August that fostered the rot.

After watching the play about 10 times and using Google earth, looks like that throw carried about 285' on the fly and 20+ on the bounce. That's assuming my guess on where Renfroe picked up the ball and a release about 10' from the track.

Had 17.5" of 16:1 fluff here, biggest snowfall of my 13 winters in Gardiner. Had a forestry meeting in Lovell the evening of 12/20, followed by the 70-mile drive home in the Olds version of the Chevy Citation. Only about 1" when I started home (Lovell was west of the best stuff) but closer to 10" when I got back to Gardiner 2+ hours later, almost all on not-yet-plowed roads. The fluff occasionally kicked up over the hood for a quick white-out, but otherwise wasn't a problem. Next afternoon when the sun came out the Kennebec between Augusta and home was filled with snow rollers, 1st I'd ever seen.

While I lamented that the record pack following Feb. 3-4 was gone by late that month, we had 16" in March - 12" wet surprise on the 23rd- and 6" in April, a messy 4" mix on 13-14. And a few IP during the cold rain on May 27 that year. Of course, NYC had only 2" after 2/4/61.

Reloading? Same for the W. Pac, which had been unusually quiet for about 2 weeks but now as a super typhoon heading NW, may affect Taiwan, almost certain for China.

Winter 1980-81 is Farmington co-op's least snowy with 43.0", one inch less than the winter before. Average there is 90". The double ratters followed 5 straight winters with 100"+, longest such run in the co-op's 128-year POR, and 1981-82 was back in triple digits.

Maybe it was a slow news day so they just re-ran the Ida forecast for kicks?

Thru 1980 (42 years) the mildest Feb temp at CAR was 49. In Feb 1981 they tied it twice and added 7 days with highs 50-53. (Current record there is 59 on 2/20/94. Not only did warmth come a month after CAR's coldest month on record (-0.7), but Feb was about 6° BN despite being +35 on the 20th.

Law enforcement tries to avoid the doofuses and "badge-heavy" people, but as in any organization, some slip in anyway.