tamarack

Oak Ridge Reservoir, about 10 miles west of where I grew up and 160' higher. Also had obs at 7 AM. 3/13/1956 9999 9999 0.06 0.5 1 3/14/1956 9999 9999 0.36 0.5 1 3/15/1956 9999 9999 0.5 0 0 3/16/1956 9999 9999 0 0 0 3/17/1956 9999 9999 1 7 7 3/18/1956 9999 9999 0 0 5 3/19/1956 9999 9999 1.35 16 21 3/20/1956 9999 9999 0.49 5 26 3/21/1956 9999 9999 0 0 20 3/22/1956 9999 9999 0 0 16 3/23/1956 9999 9999 0 0 9 3/24/1956 9999 9999 0.03 0.3 9 3/25/1956 9999 9999 0.2 2 10 3/26/1956 9999 9999 0 0 8 3/27/1956 9999 9999 0 0 7 3/28/1956 9999 9999 0 0 6 3/29/1956 9999 9999 0 0 6 3/30/1956 9999 9999 0.35 1 7 3/31/1956 9999 9999 0 0 0 4/1/1956 9999 9999 0 0 0 4/2/1956 9999 9999 0 0 0 4/3/1956 9999 9999 0.05 0 0 4/4/1956 9999 9999 0 0 0 4/5/1956 9999 9999 0 0 0 4/6/1956 9999 9999 0 0 0 4/7/1956 9999 9999 0.5 0 0 4/8/1956 9999 9999 1.6 12 12 6.49 44.3 I have no memory of the 3/17 storm but my dad measured 23.5" of new snow about 7:30 AM on the 19th with accum continuing. I call it a 24" storm. Morris Plains, 20 miles south and 300' lower, reported 23". The "sticky snow" on 4/8 brought another 12" and broke or bent some trees that had survived the Jan 1953 ice storm.

Likely that way in population centers. The barbershop where I go (most recently last Friday) seems pretty laid back. It's appointment-only and the price has bumped up a bit to cover masks, cleaning supplies and stuff (and will undoubtedly not go back down) but beyond that it's business as usual in the big town of Farmington. (Biggest in Franklin County anyway - entire county pop is a bit under 30k spread over 1700+ square miles.)

We had 11" of mid-20s powder on 3/29 and 3" paste 2 days later. My (future - married June '71) wife was at a sunrise service at the Wanaque Reservoir dam in NNJ and recalls a cold gray windy time - snow started later that morning. I was just learning to ski and after a couple noisy scraping days at Great Gorge (staff had to shovel snow onto the lift exit so we could access the snowmaking trails), skiing on quiet powder on 3/30 was exquisite.

At our (then) Gardiner home the high was 55. We matched that in New Sharon on July 8, 2009, our chilliest max for the month of July. Stratiform RA both days. I hadn’t looked in a couple days, but that Friday cold shot moderated quite a bit. The extended isn’t looking quite as bad either. It’s like all of the cold went poof. Cold and snow forecasts have been going poof for the past 6 weeks, and not just the extended - we've had far more days warmer than the day-before forecast than cooler.

My site had one 80+ in both April and May of 2009 but didn't get there again until July 29 and it was August 14 before another one. That was our coolest JJA of 23 despite a slightly AN August. The 8 weeks June 9 thru August 3 included only 7 days w/o rain and totaled 17.54". Extending that rate to a full year would mean 114". The JJA total was 23.82", which was 10.63" AN and 4.72" more than #2. We got a few ripe cherry tomatoes that summer but no main crop fruit, as fungus slowly killed the vines from bottom to top.

That's a cool list, also surprising considering the rivers in NW Maine - guess none other than the Allagash were nominated for such designations. Also surprised that someplace in the Jersey pine barrens wasn't the darkest sky region.

Just read (dailybulldog.com) that a woman driving a secondary road in Farmington yesterday was killed when a large limb/fork from a white pine landed on the roof of her car. Pics show that what came down was about 12-14" diameter and 40-50 feet long. A similar limb/fork broke out of one of our 100-foot-tall pines but was well off the road. Also saw a large fir (bigger than the lightning-struck one) uprooted and several others tipped or broken, and that's just what I can see from the road. Likely there was more damage farther in.

So now the 0.1" line is only 20 miles to my west.

We saw how well the models at that range handled "popping a secondary" for this last event.

I don't know either. Would the drug companies be doing phase 3 testing with placebos as well? Might be superfluous - with about 10% of the US population fully vaccinated and a ~5% "failure" rate, that would mean a potential 1.6 million infections of vaccinated people. Even if it's much less so far, there should be enough to observe whether the vacc-then-COVID numbers are disproportionally of variants. Moderna #2 this Friday. #1 was a nothingburger, zero discomfort unless I intentionally pressed directly on the injection site, and even that was gone within 2 days.

Heard a tree go down on the lot across the road while I was getting the mail. I could see what looked like an upper part of a fir on the ground, but it was mostly screened by other (upright) trees, and no way was I venturing in to look with this wind thrashing things. Power has blinked several times here, messing with both my work and personal computers.

House-creaking gusts here, which means near 40 mph. Had 0.95" yesterday, streams high but well below flood. Still a tattered 2" at the stake this AM, probably down to T by tomorrow afternoon. 14 of our 22 previous winters had carried continuous snow cover into April. Unsurprisingly, this year will not be #15.

We get zero upslope here but great CAD. Unfortunately, that latter phenomenon was among the missing this winter.

Have not checked out what Maine does for solar, as our house in the woods isn't well situated for it - some shade in the morning and would only get diffused rays if anything during the PM, plus the fun of brushing snow off the roof installation that would be necessary to avoid even more shade. However, we got a nice rebate for our heat pump and a tax credit from the IRS. Together they covered about 40% of the purchase/installation of the unit. We used it very sparingly this winter but look forward to cooler and less humid air this summer, the main reason for buying it.

The grade here had improved to C- right after the 9.5" on 2/2 but it's been all downhill from there. Yesterday's 0.95" came at temps 37/33 w/o even a catpaw so March will finish with 0.1" and barely that - the overnight coating on 3/13 was barely above "T" level. Early this month I opined only a 10% chance of finishing lower than the 0.6" of 2010 - was tempted to give zero odds. The long shot "wins" and winter loses. Prior to last winter I'd not had 2 successive ones w/o at 12"+ event. Will be 3 in a row unless something freaky arrives next month, and odds for that are indistinguishable from zero. At least we had the blazing mild sun of 3/20-24. Outside of those days, March was about as bad as possible.

Flying Pond in Vienna and Mt. Vernon had 17-18" when I fished there on 3/20 but by the following Tuesday afternoon meltwater from tribs had lifted the ice away from the shore. I could've stepped onto the good ice that afternoon but scrubbed my Wednesday plans because I might've had to wade/swim to get ashore after another 60° day. Will likely float the canoe in early May, either at Flying for bass or "alligator hunting" for pike at North Pond in the Belgrades.

Cloudy breezy 40s here - liked Sun-Mon-Tues a bit more. "Pack" down to 4".

Wonder if it was the 9th, after the 3rd of the many big storms that Jan-Feb. (Especially as there was no 29th in Feb 2015. )

In the running for my favorite snowstorm ever. Our place in Fort Kent didn't get CAR's 26" but 17 with winds gusting near 60 sufficed to bury our black Chevette save for a single patch not much bigger than my palm. Oddly, the snow stake lost an inch, thanks to capricious drifting - 15' either side there was 5-6 feet. Most of the snow fell with temps low-mid teens, mid-January wx. Also the best positive bust I'll ever see - late on 4/6 CAR added "flurries" to their cold and windy forecast. 3-4 hours later we had S+ and those "flurries" established a new mark for biggest snowfall at the WSO. (Since broken in 12/03 and 12/05.) It's the coldest major April snowstorm on record for most NE sites, and the day after in NYC had a high of 30, tied with a day in the 1880s for coldest April max. For New England anomalous events, I'd put it just a small step behind 3/1888, 1938 and the Octobomb.

I lied about "less than 100 feet" - it was more like 165, where it destroyed a once-75-foot-tall fir. It blew a 5-foot "splinter halfway to our house and a much smaller one 110' the other way. Most of the tree is horizontal but there's a 45' spike standing, and the top - about 25 feet of it - is lodged at 45° angle in a neighboring tree. Now I'll try again to compact the pics I took so they'll fit under the max size limit.

Dog is still upset.

One farther north hit here 12:10-12;25, no wind, maybe 0.10" RA (in 2 minutes) and a strike less than 100' from the house, which I described in a spotter call to GYX. A fuller description is in the March thread, as I need to leave on an errand in a couple minutes.

Had one go thru here 12:10-12:25, only a few minutes RA+ but immediately before that had a strike within 100' of the house. I was looking out the front window when everything lit up with KA-BOOM-BOOM (2 near-instantaneous crashes, maybe including an echo off the house.) Looked out the side and saw a sizable puff of smoke (or condensation - was not out there to sniff which) about 20 yards away. No visible sign of what it struck but there's a 90' white pine 10 yards farther from the house and directly behind that puff of whatever. I can still feel the adrenalin and our dog is panting like she's just run half a mile. Temp was 47 before the TS nd 46 after, and have had solid clouds all day though the earlier fog was gone before the storm.

2015 was Feb's year. March was also cold then but it was 2014 when the Farmington co-op recorded its coldest March since data began in 1893. Their 2nd coldest was in 1984, the year before Will's chart begins. Upthread I noted the variability of March snow, but temps are also wild. March 2012 had 90° between highest and lowest at my place, 80/-10, the greatest calendar month range I've recorded anywhere. At that co-op March temps have a 108° span, 83 to -25. Next highest are Jan/Dec, each at 101, and Feb's is 98. At the lower end, the met summer months are all 72 or 73.

March is easily the most variable for snowfall of our 4 "snow months" here, with CV nearly twice that of January. Switching to biting bugs - my black fly season is mid-late May and last year saw the least I can recall since moving here. At Randolph I'd guess late May would be he black fly peak, early June in a cold spring. In Fort Kent the first 2 weeks of June were generally the worst, and far worse than here but quite variable. 1984 was terrible there; even in moderate wind enough critters would stick as they blew past to cause significant damage. June 10-14, 1996 on our men's retreat at Deboullie was in a class by itself - even 500' from shore on Deboullie Pond I was getting hammered. Maybe insufficient air space over land for the hordes. At 90° they were active all day; usually they go hide in the shade if it's much past 80 - big heat is for deerflies.