tamarack

No doubter this morning, 26° with thick frost and a 1/16" skim on the water in the washtub. Almost time to empty the thing and store it. Saw 23 at IZG.

32 again this morning. We've touched 32 twice without seeing a frost but yesterday's 33 included a windshield-scraper morning. Nanoclimate?

It was almost a year after data stopped (last day was 10/15/22) before the instrument shelter was removed. There wasn't all that much snow in the mountains going into the 12/18/23 event though what was there augmented the 4-5" RA. A year earlier we had a 3" rainstorm on 12/23 but the 22" dump a few days earlier soaked it up, leaving a 12" pack here while the 4" going into 12/18/23 vanished in a flash. The '22 rain came with 30s and 40s while 12/18/23 had mid 50s, and also a 2.3" rain a week earlier. That doesn't deny anything you wrote, just that 12/23 was a different animal.

Can you recall 2005? As May that year was awful, so were the fall colors. They came late, were dull yellow-brown, and as they approached peak a 3-day northeast storm (6" worth) tore down 80% of the leaves. There was no peak. This year was a bit early and had more reds around the house than usual (reds are generally scarce here) though the peak was short (but quite nice), with many leaves dropping Oct 4-6. Except for oaks and a few holdouts, it's stick season here.

Some change numbers for a rural site are below. The Farmington co-op records began in 1893 and ended halfway thru October 2022 when the volunteer's health prevented his taking measurements and no one picked up the torch. (Very sad because this site has the most complete records for any Maine co-op I've found that dates from the 19th century. Only eleven months are missing and just one month after 1913.) Up until September of 1966 the obs sites (several) were all in the town center. After that the site was 1.5 miles north of the center in a rural setting - one 2-lane road with scattered houses and with forest to the east, ag fields on the flood plain to the west. The numbers below are changes in temperature from the 1970s to the 2010s. ('60s omitted because 2/3 were in town, '20s omitted because only 2.8 years of obs, though the temperature rise was continuing.) 2010s temps minus 1970s temps Year DJF DJFM JJA MAX 1.78 2.76 2.97 0.27 MIN 4.53 8.06 6.61 2.75 MEAN 3.08 5.41 4.58 1.51 Those cold season changes are shocking. (But it's only one site)

My wife had to scrape frost from the windshield at 7 AM, so colder on our driveway than at the max-min 15 feet away. It may be because the tall lilac next to the instrument still has most of its leaves.

It was 35 at 11 last evening and only dropped 2° after that - odd, as the sky was clear both then and this morning at 7. Picked all the peppers this morning, as we may get under 30 tonight.

2007 was our snowiest December and February 2008 was only 0.4" behind 2017 for tops. (noted on the sig)

Can one drive to the summit now? It's 53 years since we visited Whiteface on our honeymoon, and back then the road ended about 250' vertical below the top. We walked thru a tunnel (still ice on the walls in late June) then took an elevator to the summit. Also rode the decrepit and scary lift to Little Whiteface, but that's another story.

Super latitudinal that season. CAR lacked only 2.2" from reaching 200. My place 2.2° lat to the south had 142.3" and Dendrite, 3.5° south of CAR, had a bit more than my place. Meanwhile, PVD had 24.7".

Record high of 83 on the 23rd, record low of 20 two days (and 63°) later. It had to even out at some point. It always does. Last winter it happened twice. Record wet December, 68% AN January, record dry February, record wet March. (Also record wet DJFM) Can make one dizzy.

PWM's 1st four weeks, 7 days of 80+ along with the howling CF on 10-24 that spread the wildfires that covered nearly 200,000 acres and killed 15, Maine's greatest fires. The 83 on 10/23 is the site's highest so late in the season. The 87 on 10/7 is the 2nd warmest day in October, behind the 88 on the same date in 1963. 10/1/1947 58 32 0 10/2/1947 58 43 T 10/3/1947 63 34 0 10/4/1947 66 30 0 10/5/1947 73 41 0 10/6/1947 84 51 0 10/7/1947 87 58 0 10/8/1947 81 54 T 10/9/1947 64 41 0 10/10/1947 61 32 0 10/11/1947 65 39 T 10/12/1947 61 40 0 10/13/1947 66 41 0 10/14/1947 75 43 0 10/15/1947 74 39 0 10/16/1947 79 44 0 10/17/1947 84 44 0 10/18/1947 82 50 0 10/19/1947 80 56 0 10/20/1947 79 55 0 10/21/1947 69 48 0 10/22/1947 70 37 0 10/23/1947 83 35 0 10/24/1947 59 26 0 10/25/1947 65 20 0 10/26/1947 65 37 0 10/27/1947 73 39 0 10/28/1947 78 41 0

Yankees home opener was scheduled to start at 1 PM. Conditions at the Stadium then: 25°, heavy snow, 6" new. Since their records began in 1869, no other April storm was anywhere near as wintry, though 2 (1875 and 1915) were a bit greater. Some MA points had measurable snow on 10/10/79, including 0.3" at DCA. Norfolk in NW CT had 6.8".

GYX had forecast strong winds, but didn't post the wind advisory until about 8 AM, which is when the windiest 3-4 hours commenced. In the afternoon the wind advisory leapfrogged to east of Penobscot Bay.

Generator shut off at 3:10 after 5:45 running time. Found a few leaves, but no grandkids to jump into them. Dog has no interest at all.

A piece of the pumps canopy was torn off at Irving's Big Stop on Rt 2 in Farmington; looks like no one was underneath at the time. Road blockages and power outages common all over Franklin County. Our genny is into its 6th hour

Still no power here but not quite as windy - G35 instead of 40. CMP scoped out our short road about 11:15. The four lodged firs that were tipped on 12/18 remain secure; any one of them would easily reach our power lines if they came loose. Leaves are piled up and I'm counting on a bit less wind before I move them to their winter home (including some atop 2 rows of carrots for next April - dug the other 2, nice size and form).

Just a dusting here last 12/13 but we had 12.4" on 12-3-5. The 2.3" RA (some ZR at start) compacted snow to 4" then came 4.2" on 17-18, most falling at 50-55°. Was glad there was little on the ground going into the deluge, as it would've melted 20" and possibly turned the 2nd highest peak flows in the Kennebec drainage into new all-time records. Still no power here but not quite as windy - G35 instead of 40. CMP scoped out our short road about 11:15. The four lodged firs that were tipped on 12/18 remain secure; any one of them would easily reach our power lines if they came loose.

At the late lamented Farmington co-op (volunteer passed and no one picked up the torch), 32 out of 128 Octobers had measurable snow, some in each decade except the 1980s and the 2 years of the 2020s. Average snow in those winters was 1.2" AN but since the Oct snow averaged 2.6", the November-May average was 1.4" BN. Only 3 Octobers had 6"+ (1962, 1965, 2011) and those winters ran +6.6". Of course, those Octobers averaged 7.2". All that adds up to not much effect. Wind is howling, gusts to 40+ which is significant here in the woods. Went to generator power at 9:25. Trees around the yard are 90%+ bare and the leaves are nice and dry, perfect for raking. It may be dumb in this wind, but I'm going to try anyway as the Monday rain and unsettled week may not allow the leaves to re-dry.

Coburn Gore FTW? Or Kibby Ridge where the wind towers are lined up.

Peak is well passed in the Maine foothills. The Whites are a week or more earlier. Except for oaks and some holdouts, it's probably close to stick season there.

The wildlife biologist with whom I often traveled for 30 years once (when I wasn't there) encountered an out-of-state hunter sitting in a truck with engine running, parked on a northern Maine logging road. He stopped to ask if all was well. The answer was that it was his chum's turn to hunt - one would walk into the woods a few hundred yards and sit on a log and the other would wait a certain number of minutes (30 IIRC) then honk the horn so the first guy could find his way out and make the switch.

About 3,170 according to G.E. There's always Greylock, though, about 300' taller. (And in SNE, sort of)

And the cold gets stronger . . . First 32 of the season, almost 3 weeks later than average. More to come next week. Today's wind will pull down some more leaves, but the big drop came Saturday-Monday. We're at about 75% drop; ash is bare and white birch almost the same, maples and yellow birch at 30-90% drop, oaks dragging as usual, mostly still green.

Thanks for the recap - among many other things it confirmed that retention stunk. Our (usually) pack-retaining site had 111% of average snowfall but only 67% of SDDs. That's by far the lowest SDD percentage for a winter with AN snow and only the late-blooming 06-07 came relatively close. Touched 32 this morning, 1st of the season so we're on our way.