tamarack

Many thanks. And not too long until you join the diamond anniversary club.

Correct about Maine and 70 - they're in cadre 1B, after first responders and medical workers. Now the threshold has dropped to 60. I would've had to wait a few more days if I'd been in Mass.

One caution I'd offer - if I get any reaction beyond minor and ephemeral soreness at the injection site, it will be my first. Many others are not so fortunate.

83-84 in Ft. Kent had the longest run of snow cover, 169 days - Nov 11-April 28. Then two days of frozen stuff (more IP than SN, 2.2" from 0.71" LE) on May 4-5 that added another 2 days. 81-82 was the only season that carried cover into May, Nov 18-May 3, 167 days, helped mightily by the April blizzard. 1984 had only 8.4" after the big dump on 3/14-15 as the late month event stayed south. Each of those snow seasons totaled 173 days with 1"+.

Moderna is what Franklin Mem Hosp ha been given so far. Have to modify the "costly lunch" comment above. The Icelandic krona was about 100 to the dollar when we were there. It's been running closer to 130 for the past couple years, so our $30 (apiece) lunches would be 21-22 now, not cheap but plenty and excellent.

On our longer stop in Iceland we spent one day walking around Reykjavik, including a great but costly lunch on the shore, then took the touristy but fun Golden Circle trip. One little highlight for this forester was when the host on our vehicle said, "If you're ever lost in an Iceland forest, stand up!" Lots of scraggly head-high birch saplings clinging to the young volcanic rubble.

Nearly 4 hours after the stick, so far not even any soreness at the site. Tomorrow might be different according to the literature - we'll see. Nice upper teens and windy March afternoon, not quite in Tuesday's league but no evening obs spoiler this time. Skies suggest there's flakes up there but none reaching the ground here.

Don't need dry soil for "spring" fires, just the revealing of last season's dead grass/leaves. Soil below could be soaked or even frozen while the surface litter blazes.

I've never flown nonstop from coast to coast, but we were airborne 6-7 hours EWR-KFL both ways on our Norway trip in 2017. (Icelandic allowed indefinite stays before the 2.5-hr continuing flight to Oslo - we stayed there 2 nights. Had an 8-hr layover on the way home, just enough to visit the Blue Lagoon but alas, they were booked solid. Went to the Viking Museum instead.)

Ten top years for that. Since my obs time of 9 PM, the years are ranked by the March 31 number, 3 hours before entering April. Year 3/31 4/1 2001 48 47 (Even in Ft. Kent we never entered April with more pack. 46" in 1984 was tops there.) 2008 35 34 2014 34 32 2019 26 26 2017 25 28 (3.5" on 4/1) 2015 20 20 2018 15 14 2005 14 13 2011 13 25 (15.0" on 4/1) 2020 10 10 22-yr Avg 12.5 12.8 median 9.5 9.0

The potential volcano is between Reykjavik and Keflavik Airport on a relatively narrow peninsula, so there's the (probably low) possibility of the capital being cut off from the island's major AP.

Iceland is closer, 17,000 quakes in a week though none greater than 5.6.

About 20 hours of moderate snow here, 9.5" total for 3/5-6/01. The real action that month came after the equinox - 16" on 22-23 and then 19" on 30-31, brought the depth up to 48", Farmington's tallest on record so late in the season.

Secondary roads in steep country tend to be that way. The curves along the upper Sandy on Rt 4 are challenging (even after DOT bypassed the worst ones just north of Small's Falls about 10 years ago) , but IMO no worse than those on Rt 27 along the Carrabassett on the way to Sugarloaf. Saddleback is next to a tourist town (however small) of long standing; Rangeley tourism dates back into the 1800s. Whether that can translate into heavy winter traffic beyond snowmobiles waits to be seen.

Don't know how many skied there this season, but that place had more 911 pocket dials - usually from on a lift - than any other place/places in Franklin County, according to the sheriff's report.

Have had 11 snowfalls of 8-19" after 3/15 in 22 winters here, 4 of them in April with the latest being 11.2" on 4/12-13/07. Nothing reaching 6" after that, though it was different when we lived in Gardiner, with 6"+ storms after 4/15 in both 87 and 88. Didn't get the huge ORH dump in 87, however. (Encountered double-digit snows during visits to NW NJ in both 83 [11" on 4/19] and 86 [13" on 4/23] - we didn't think the state would ever again let us visit in late April.)

Learned early on that's a different area than where I worked when living in Fort Kent - more like the northern plains only with more snow. Can recall being in the woods between Allagash and St.-Pamphile on a breezy day following a modest (6") snowfall. Gusts were emptying the treetops but no problems, then while driving home I'd hear that Rt 1 was closed. In late Feb 1982 we had 2 straight days with highs near zero and gusts 50+ - thought the blasts coming down the St. John River would tip the office trailer, it was shaking so badly. Early on day 2 we heard from the State Police than all roads north of HUL were closed. Not exactly true, but the intent was to prevent even more drivers getting marooned in dangerous temps. (March 1 that year had a low of -32. Spring was less than 3 weeks away!) In other news, finally caught up with the vaccinators, 1st dose tomorrow at the Farmington hospital.

Good point - that's why the original area couldn't make it. Rangeley is an hour closer to populous places, also handy to the Whites for border crossers and a bigger mountain with better natural snow. Both Greenville and Rangeley are snowmobile havens but the latter has more of the organized sledder activities and is also more of a four-season tourist destination. I've never even heard of Big Moose Mountain. Until about 15 years ago it was Big Squaw Mountain. It's located just NW from Greenville near the south end of Moosehead Lake. As noted in the link posted by MRVexpat, "squaw" is a term offensive to many tribes so the Maine legislature expunged it from the state's place names. They even changed Squa Pan, a mountain near PQI, to Scopan because of the first 4 letters, even though that name supposedly means "where the bears den". Haven't gotten to Snowsquall Island yet.

Ever get up to Big Squaw when the lift was running its full length. The view from there must be right up there with BW though of a very different character. Instead of the MWN massif there's all of Moosehead, Kineo cliffs, the Spencers, forest, lakes and the great white tooth of Katahdin 50 miles to the NE. Except for Greenville, there's little sign of civilization in view.

Not surprising. Looking at the other end of the diurnal curve, the season's coldest afternoon here is 14. Only 01-02 with 16 failed to have a colder max. 18 of 23 winters here have recorded at least one max <10° and 5 have had subzero highs. Average here for winter's coldest max is 3.7°, median is 4.

Rt 1 between CAR and PQI? (Though there's other Aroostook drift-catchers.) Late in the least snowy of my 10 Fort Kent winters, a March snowfall was followed the next day (Saturday) by winds which closed the town's ski tow after a man was blown off the trail and into the trees. Monday evening we drove to PQI for a forestry meeting and there was 1/4-1/2 mile in that CAR-PQI stretch that still had massively packed 12-15' drifts, the traffic temporarily rerouted thru a potato field downwind from the pavement.

Morning GFS says nada thru equinox day. Can I "beat" 2010's 0.6" for least snowy March?

It was, for us, and came after the worst start I'd seen since 73-74 in BGR, my first full winter in Maine. (Not a good intro, especially after the early and abrupt end of 72-73, our first few months after the move.) And we were only a couple degrees from a 50" April in 2007 as the Patriots Day(s) storm had 5" snow and 5" cold RA.

Feb-Apr yielded just 7.8" in 2006. In 2007 those months had 76.2". 2006-07 had 11" thru Jan 13 and 84" afterward. Nov-Dec 2006 each set records for warmth at the Farmington co-op (Dec eclipsed in 2015) and Jan was running +12 before the pattern changed.

My non-winter sig shows that kind of contrast only separated by a single month, though I cherrypicked 12 consecutive month periods rather than calendar years: Feb. 2006-Jan 2007 had 26.9" Mar 2007-Feb 2008 had 178.0"