tamarack

Just got a propane full-up, 79.6 gal at $4.099.  genny has been running for 70 hours, and with the periodic 5-minute tests and a couple short outages since April, the gallon-per-hour estimate we were given seems to be working.  Called CMP because a neighbor on our short road had read that the road had power restored - nope; Sat. 10 PM was the latest estimate.  Burns a bit that folks on the tar road 2000 feet away got lit up last night, but with only 3 customers on our road, it's understandable.

Bright blue 10-15 mph breeze, mid 20s.  Would be a beautiful day were the ground white.  Family scheduled to arrive tomorrow, though that's not firm, but when they get here things will look much like their home in SNJ.  Sad

31 minutes ago, DavisStraight said:

If I remember correctly it was good til then end once it started.

06-07 was the greatest Jekyll-Hyde (or Hyde-Jekyll) winter I remember anywhere.  The incredibly abrupt change came on Jan 14.  Prior to that Nov-Dec-Jan had been way AN for temps, especially Jan, with less than 1/3 of snowfall season-to-date.  A couple of 5" events plus cold started the parade, then came VD-07 - "only" 15.5" because it was 8:1 cornmeal at low teens.  Then the hits kept coming, topped by 18.5" on April 4-5.  88% of the season's 95.3" fell Jan 14 on.

The 12.4" storm earlier this month was more snow than the 06-07 Hyde act.

32 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

Not sure I trust CMP website. ETA on power is Friday, 10pm. Odd because there are roads not far from us that also list the same date, yet had power on this morning. Gonna suck hard if it's 2 more days. I saw where most of the trees were on lines and they have been removed as of this morning. 

Saw the exact same time for Starks Road in New Sharon.  

42 minutes ago, dryslot said:

Looks like the Androscoggin River in Auburn for this event will fall in 4th place as it crested at 20.27'.

Historic Crests
(1) 27.57 ft on 03/20/1936
(2) 23.71 ft on 04/02/1987
(3) 22.84 ft on 03/28/1953
(4) 17.80 ft on 03/01/1896
(5) 17.42 ft on 05/13/1989
Show More Historic Crests
 

Finally got wi-fi back - out since Monday night.  Genny still running, and it may keep on into the weekend.  Some of the worst tree damage I've seen is within 2 miles of our place, including 3 large and 2 medium trees dumped on our 0.4-mile gravel road, 3 fir, one basswood, one a sizable fork from a pine.  Most I've run the chainsaw in years.  A huge white ash (2 ft diam, 80 ft tall) along Starks Road (Rt 134) tipped from the side toward the river and across 134, stretching the phone cord to the ground and snapping both hot wires.  We had winds probably gusting to 50+ from 10A to 2P on Monday in moderate/heavy RA, and the sustained blasts plus increasingly soggy ground led to the blowdowns.  The only real cold came shortly after the 12" dump early this month, so essentially no frost in the ground.

Total here was 4.21" here, while Farmington sites were 5+ and Temple's 6.01" is the highest I've seen.  2 inches or so mud on parking lots - Irving, McD, Walgreens this AM - looks like 3-4 ft of water at peak.  Routte 2 was flooded in several places in New Sharon and Farmington; weeds caught in the bushes/fences show about 3 ft on that highway at peak.

Some peak flow top-5s for the Kennebec drainage (K'bec records 1979 on, other 2 from the 1920s):

         Kennebec (N. Sidney)    Sandy                     Carrabassett
1.      232,000   4/1987           51,100   4/1987         50,700   4/1987
2.     167,000   12/2023          42,900  12/2023      39,000   12/2023*
3.     113,000    6/1984           38,600   3/1936       35,500    5/2023
4.     113,000    5/2023           36,900   3/1953       31,600    8/2011
5.     111,000     4/1979            31,300   5/2023      30,800    3/1936

* The Carrabassett gauge hit that 39k at 7:30 PM on Monday with the river still rising, then had no readings until 3:30 PM yesterday with the flow at <15k.

10 minutes ago, dryslot said:

Tom, I saw this earlier, The scanner is hopping and there looking for some others that were washed away in FFL.

That 39k flow on the Carrabassett was an error.  20 minutes later the site showed 30.2k, though still rising.  Probably was 29k earlier.

Still gusting 30+ but the heavy RA may be done - unless something develops upstream.

The Carrabassett set a new #2 peak flow of 35.3k cfs on May 1.  When I checked the USGS website 15 minutes ago, the flow was 39k with no sign of the curve flexing.  I doubt it will reach the 50.7 of 1987 but . . .
The much slower Sandy was a bit over 20k.  On spring RA/snowmelt events, the Sandy usually has the greater flow, but on flash flood events, the 'Bassett "wins" - by 4k last May and more than double the flow of the Sandy from Irene.

Sad report from Windham - a man was clearing branches from his roof when a big part of a pine fell on him, fatally.

2 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

CMP saying my power is back on, which it definitely isn't. But at least they are cutting rates next year?

Raise them 50% then cut by 5%?  

Wind is significantly less than at midday but the RA continues.

8 minutes ago, OceanStWx said:

 

I think another factor has been the duration of winds. We're usually a 3 hour window of the LLJ, but this event started at like 9 am for PWM and they were still gusting over 35 kt last hour. That's a long time to beat on infrastructure. 

Even if models like the HRRR and RAP tend to mix too deeply, there was a good signal for a long duration wind event greater than advisory thresholds.

Peak gusts here were 10 AM thru 2 PM, and I'm guessing they reached 50.  As I was walking back from the "marooned" pickup, and back and forth with the chainsaw, I kept looking up with every gust. Got hit with some twigs and heard a big fir break near the yard, but otherwise no harm - except the most thorough soaking in many years.  (The 40+ year-old rain jacket wasn't up to the task, plus the wind was ripping open the Velcro.)

28 minutes ago, NW_of_GYX said:

It’s a fooking disaster out here in Western Maine. Add elevation and snowpack to 6” of rain you get this shit show. This is the 4th damaging rain event we’ve had in 12 months. Folks are tired 

Fifth big (3.25"+) since October of last year.  The 2020 Grinch set a new Dec precip mark, broken by 3.25" on 12/23/22, and the current storm looks to finish 4"+.  The local tree damage ranks with the 2005 TS and is far above any previous leaf-off event here, even Oct 2017.

Reported 3.62" to GYX at 3:45 with more to come.  Also noted that 3 trees (and significant parts of 2 more) landed on a 200-yard stretch of our 0.4-mile road.  (Must have sounded like "yard" not "road" to GYX, as the former is what's on their site.)  Those 3 across the road were 2 big fir and one big basswood.  The smaller of the fir is up against the wires and I left it alone, for now, but was able to clear enough of the others to allow passage.  Unfortunately, both my wife and I were out when the bigger fir toppled, and our vehicles are parked out near the tar road.  When things dry out, and if no one has attacked the on-wire tree, I'll probably walk down and take a whack at it tomorrow.  My next-door neighbor has a big red maple crushing the rear corner of the garage and an equally big (15" diameter and 70 feet tall) black cherry that just missed the house but utterly destroyed the gazebo and messed up the service entry.  Fortunately, she has a genny similar to ours.

Wild River at Gilead peaked above 30k CFS - I wonder if it was running across Rt 2 at peak.  It was down to 17.4k when I looked about 4.  Both the Sandy at Mercer and the Carrabassett at North Anson are above flood and climbing, and the Sandy upriver at Madrid is at near record flow so the Mercer gauge has "miles to go".

2 minutes ago, rimetree said:

Getting loud again. Already recorded highest gust of year today...let's see if we can beat it with that line. Looks like Isles of Shoals stopped reporting earlier...too bad. 56/56

Appledore Is. recorded a 71 gust a couple hours ago.

Maybe the strongest winds in our 25+ years here, other than the 30 seconds of near svr TS in 2005.  It managed to flip the tarp off the woodpile despite poles tied to both sides and heavy poles on top.  Also untarpped the snowblower, but it can stay that way.

AUG gust 62 at 9 AM, probably approaching G40 here, which is quite strong for this sheltered area.  RA 2.14" thru 9:40 with mod. RA continuing and more upstream.

Lights have "almost" blinked, not enough to crash the desktop, though I'll be surprised if the generator remains quiet today.

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2017_North_American_storm_complex#:~:text=It brought heavy rain and,the Ice Storm of 1998.

The number of power outages in the state of Maine surpassed the Ice Storm of 1998.^[1]

True, but with caveats:
--2017 caused far less infrastructure damage than 1998 - poles/transformers/wire, etc.
--Comparing outages 2 days (or 2 weeks) after the events show there was little comparison by then.
--The power companies, especially CMP, were doing a poorer job in 2017 than 19 years earlier.

Lots of tree damage in each one, though mostly breakage in 1998 and a much greater proportion of uprooting in 2017.
 

3 hours ago, weathafella said:

We had the same experiences in the same region.  The 3/19/56 event was memorable in the sense that we weren’t yet at adult height (you could argue I’m still not) making the amount of snow seem so much greater.  My dad was a pharmacist and had to get to work in the final hours of the March 56 storm.  My brother and I were still too small to manage shoveling 2 feet.  Dad ruined our ‘51 Mercury but he made it in time to make sure sick people got their needed medicine.

That March '56 dump was about 3x bigger than any snow I'd seen (except 12/47 when I was 21 months old).  Then 2 more big storms in '58, 2 in '60 and 2 in '61.  Even Fort Kent couldn't approach that cluster of big storms.
I thought that with 10" depth in early December this year, we were good to go.  Alas . . 

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

Most of the CC doomsdayers when it comes to winter don’t have a very good knowledge of historical variability. You mentioned the 1930s-1950s and that was actually a pretty brutal period too in New England for snow lovers…the early 1950s were actually unmatched for a LONG time in terms of warmth and low snow...esp in NNE.

It doesn’t require rejecting CC to understand that natural variability works on top of it. We’ve had these discussion in here before many times but you can only lead the horse to water….

I first got interested in snow during the early 1950s.  Not the best time for the NYC region.
   Average snowfall:
1943-44 thru 48-49:  39.2"   The 12/26-27/47 storm might still be NYC's #1 had measurements been done the way 2006 & 2016 were measured.  (Check depth changes.)
1949-50 thru 54-55:  14.2"    Our NNJ home site had no storms of 10"+.
1955-56 thru 60-61:   34.5"   Home site had 7 storms of 18-24" during this period.
 

20 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Do you consider it a great or memorable winter if it only snows in Jan/ Feb.. and we lose December? 

Ancient history, but in our 13 winters (85-86 thru 97-98) in Gardiner, the worst for pre-Jan 1 snowfall was 1992.  However, Feb-Mar were kinda nice, and the 92-93 total trailed only 95-96 over those 13.
The exception that proves the rule?  (If there's any such thing.)

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I smell a Sci-fi publication....

It's been done, at least in a 1962 short story, "The Weather Man" by Theodore L. Thomas.   (I have the story in a book, "Time Probe: The Sciences in Science Fiction", assembled by Arthur C. Clarke.)   It describes technicians riding into the sun's atmosphere on "sessile boats" that are protected by "a thin film of gaseous carbon", with weather modification made by carefully aimed water drops.  A fun read.

I'm hoping that, like the last one did in the 48-hour run-up, the Monday storm will start edging east so that only BHB and point east will get the strong winds.  I'd also like, if it has to rain, that temps would stay in the 30s here, also like last Monday.

31 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

12/22-23 was a big rainer for all of New England. 

True - we had 3.25" though about 0.4" was in SN/IP at the start.  Thanks to the 22" with 2.41" LE on Dec 16-18, that 12/23 deluge only pounded the pack down to 12".  The big difference from the Christmas Day Grinch of 2020 is that most of the 2022 rain came with temps in the low-mid 30s while in 2020 the heaviest rain came at low-mid 50s.  There was only 4" OG going into 12/25/20 but even if it was 14", all would've gone down the Sandy River.

2 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

No that was the 12/29/76 storm....the 1981 storm was decent in ORH...I think they had close to a foot. But it was definitely better in the 128 belt where some 18+ amounts happened.

That 12/29-30/76 storm dumped 12" at our Fort Kent home, atop the ~2' from 26-27.  We drove home thru the night from NNJ, hitting snowy roads in Mass and falling snow shortly after crossing the Piscataqua.  Reaching BGR in S+ about 4 AM, we stopped at HoJo's for a big coffee and headed north.  That coffee went right thru me and blessedly, the outhouse at the Medway rest stop had TP.  With the temp in the low teens, using powder snow would not have been fun.  
Got to FK about 9 AM, and our blue Beetle was merely a white lump.  Less than 5 minutes after parking the pickup, the NW backsides were blasting at 40-50 and visibility dropped to 50 feet in the gusts - could not see Pelletier Florist across the street.  Very fortunate that those winds didn't come while we were between PQI and CAR.
 

CON was 18° at midnight but the afternoon high was -8° at nearly 20kt sustained. Yeah, no thanks. 
KCON 251900Z 31018KT 20SM CLR M22/M33 A3015 RMK SLP220 T12211332

Had 9° at my 9 PM obs time and -23 the next morning with winds gusting 40+.  Afternoon max was -16 and the 3" from the evening before was blowing a blizzard.  !st CT Lake, with its 7 AM obs time, reported -24/-32 for 12/26.  Outside of MWN, it's tied with Jan 15, 2004 on Mansfield for the lowest max I've seen in New England.

4 hours ago, WinterWolf said:

Dec of 92 was like that here…tons of precipitation, with heavy heavy rain, that transitioned to frozen precip almost 18-24 gets after it started, and snowed the whole next day.  

That type of sequence is very very rare in this region.  I can't recall experiencing a system with even 1/3 of the respective P-types, and the only one other than 1992 that I can think of was the NYC "snowicane" in Feb 2010.

1 hour ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Nope. This was basically relegated to above 800’ last year. All those pics were my street . Every yard lost some kind of tree . I want something damaging and widespread that causes infrastructure problems 

Been there in 1953 and 1998, the 2 storms 45 years apart, to the day.  As a forester, I'd be fine if the next one didn't come until 2043.

Nice flurry 7:15-7:30 this morning, briefly S+.  Of course, while the Greens get 3-4", Our 0.1" coating has to suffice here.

10 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

15" SN then 10" rn. what a mess that must have been

5th greatest peak flow on the Sandy, 95 years POR.  In NNJ we had about 8" capped by a bit of ZR as temp never got up to 32.

41 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

10" rain. okie dokie

Farmington co-op had 10" come down on December 26-27/1969 (though it's a bit suspicious as no one else in the region had more than about 7").  Started with 15" SN then poured as temp rose to 50°.  Was also BTV's top snowfall until 2010 topped it.

Nice to see a sunny day, with modest temps.

2 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

2.28" total RF

Exactly the same as here.

20 minutes ago, dryslot said:

2.84", Temps hovered right around 39°F at my casa, East and weaker track with 5-10 mph winds did not allow us to mix out, Snowpack is gone except for some piles.

Still 4" here, which will be white pavement when the temps fall.  And still enough frozen on the driveway to bring out the wood-ash bucket tomorrow.

Looks like the serious RA is done for us, some light stuff for another hour or 2.