tamarack

Kind of like "Thirty-Eight, The Hurricane that Transformed New England"?

Something happened for NNE (Maine at least) in early Feb. Prior to the big dump on 2/10-11 we'd not had even a 4" event here. Then the period Fe. 10-Mar. 12 brought 61". Tough winter. Here we are at/near climo's lowest temps of the season and some haven't seen even one storm over 6". Second half has got to be better than the first, right? Revised for our area.

The day after we moved from in-town Fort Kent to the back settlement, our neighbor's dog (large white German shepherd) was playing with an adult coyote on the slope facing our yard. Farmers in the area piled stones in the middle of fields rather than in walls, and the 2 canids were playing at one, remaining 180° from each other but with tails wagging. When Princess headed home the coyote followed halfway to the house. Lots of wildlife there - coyotes howling nearby or staring at our house (always when I was away, wife was not amused), the "jackpot" raspberry patch across the road had its best picking after the bears had broken trails thru the canes.

The 3 big midwinter storms of 78 were mostly meh in northern Maine. Fort Kent got 4" from Jan. 20-21, a rainy slushy mess from the OV bomb, then 2" from the fringes of Feb. 6-7. That was followed by 5 weeks of cold nothingness - Feb 8 thru Mar 13 had 0.26" precip. After the 13" of 18:1 fluff on Jan. 18, that winter had no more warning criteria events left.

True even when we lived in NNJ. Of the 7 big (18-24"+) storms 3/56 thru 2/61, only the 3/58 dump was paste and none had p-type issues. 2/61 got into the upper 20s but the other five had temps 10-25. Same for big storms in 64 and 67, and even with the near-30 peak during 2/69's Mayor Lindsey storm the event was all powdery. Biggest paste job we've had in Maine was 3/22-23/2001 with 16" of fir-top breaking snow while Eustis had 34".

That month is the most recent where our area got dumped on (37" in Farmington) while points south were a tiny bit too warm (PWM 3.7").

Pretty thin outside of the mountains - even the far north is way below average though far better than around here. Not sure the club trail thru our woodlot is open yet, only a handful of sled passes down our road to access it, and at the corner of our gravel road and (paved) Industry Road is a place that works on snowmobiles. Our 9" "pack" isn't as tall as some of the rocks on that trail.

Not far away, Hooker (1,800' elev) averages about 120" thru Jan 20.

No flakes here since Monday AM. Being at 390' some 30-40 miles SE from 3-4k peaks kinda limits (eliminates) upslope. We live on synoptics.

IDK - we're 9.2° AN so far and our warmest January (2006) was 7.9° AN. This despite never getting up to 40. CAR is running +13, looks torchy to me. Today will make 29 AN days in the past 30, and only the few clear calm nighttime hours this month on the 12th allowed radiation sufficient to make that day -1.

Ever try skinning the non-salmonid freshwater fish? Makes all the difference, IMO. Not many pickerel up here as big as the one in your pic but the pike are bigger and make an outstanding fish stew.

My dad made 4 topwater traps about 1960 from a diagram in a sporting mag - more skimming required but can set it for sensitive or heavy-duty takes, never wind-sets (big issue with 1960 underwater traps) and never snubs a fish when being picked up to access the reel, also visible from 1/4 mile away, far longer than I'm now interested in running. He made 4 more in 1986 when my daughter got interested in ice fishing. Used a spud (ice chisel) for 5-6 years, great until the ice gets thicker than 10-12" then a real chore. The Snabb hand auger dad bought about 1961 is good to 30"+ (requires kneeling past 25) and is the only efficient spoon auger I ever saw, though it's also the only one I've seen in the past 50+ years; the corkscrew design took over the market.

NNE plow operators tend to clear snow for the next storm, not just the current one. That's probably why the RI fellow was so disappointed 4 years ago. Piles in Pawtucket after 15" looked just as big as western Maine mountain roadsides after 50" in 9 days atop a 30"+ pack.

12z GFS shows zero qpf here thru 300, after which the cold is gone. (Needs a barf emogi.)

Running +9° here for January, +6 for max and +12 for min.

We found a threshold in Feb-Mar 1984 in NW Maine - had to stop boundary maintenance because all the old evidence was buried. Measured 80" depth on 3/15 at Big 20 Twp. Average temp here is similar to Berlin, 24.8/3.3, though it's "live", changing a bit with each new entry. Temps currently bottom out on the 21st at 24.3/2.2. (Better than my 10-yr avg at Fort Kent, which dropped to 11/-12 on 1/15. That's 3° lower than the town's 75-year POR at the Water Company co-op site but only 0.6° lower for my 10 years there - 76-85.)

My guess is the long-collapsed remains of an old dug well.

Not the worst though a contender. 00 and 06 were worse (and the latter was about to get even 'worser' - 7.8" total for FebMarApr.) 16 was about equally bad at this point. However, 2007 sits at the bottom but had just turned on the jets toward a decent winter a few days before. 1st subzero morning of the season was the 17th, easily the latest here. Worth noting that 2 of the 3 events over 2" (Dec.5-6 and Jan.16) had ratios of 4.4 to 1.

Not even close here - had 4.7" snow with 1.07" LE, not quite a powder ratio, then 0.29" RA. The 1.36" total is barely over half of the Grinch's 2.68". Saturday was perhaps the 1st significant snowfall here that came on a day 14° AN. Little half-inch surprise this morning, frosting the twigs.

One of the stranger storms in memory - after taking 6-7 hours to reach 1/2", it dumped 3" from 11:30-1:15. Then came a bit of IP followed by 1.2" of big wet (0.51" LE) flakes until changing to rain at 4:45 just as I began running the snowblower. Rain total 0.29", much of it while I was clearing the driveway, ending with a smattering of tiny graupel. Those afternoon mashed potato flakes reminded me of late Feb 2010, but for this event we did better than most (outside of the upslope world.)

Just what I was thinking. Not a place to ride after dark.

Thought we were cooked when S+ went to IP about 1:20, but 20 minutes later it switched back to fat wet aggregates, another 3/4" in the next hour, stuff so dense you'd have water running thru your fingers while making a snowball. Worlds better than the RA+ we were supposed to be getting from noon on. Strange event - temps on a razor's edge and we happen to be on the good side, so far. Was hoping to hang on to 3" pack, now up to 9.

3.5" with 3" 11:30-1:15 when it changed to IP, with till the odd flake and occasional raindrops. The 3.5" is wonderful snowman material, 6-7 to 1. Now some scattered fatties hurtling down.

Imagine how Jeff would feel - less than 4 feet while Phin gets over 70.

Agree on Hartford. Had some jams on 495 Lowell/Lawrence, not your concern. 81 used to be a mess in construction near Wilkes-Barre but that's finished. IND can be a pain, too. Had to enter home to Scranton then Scranton-DEC to compare with the 90-forever. Kids moved to SNJ 6 years ago so no DEC trips since then. Just increased to to moderate SN but still less than 1". At 11, IZG had 33 and SN, AUG 36 with RA. Don't know how long before we change over.