tamarack

NO embarrassed TB12 twice this season - 3rd time too?

Pass. Jan 1996 had 2 nice storms atop a snowy Dec, though the metro-blizzard was a whiff. Then 3 torch-deluges in 11 days, Farmington loses 32" of snowpack right when climo temps are coldest. I've whined enough on that other month . . .

And 12z was worse. The weekend event is now a 1-1.5" snowpack swallower and the cold finally arrives, sort of, at 384 (after another cutter.) It never happens quite that way, even with cutters. Normal low temp at CAR in mid-January is near zero. That 12z run has them never getting below 11°.

Near zero this morning, first BN minimum since 12/20. Average max here for 1/11 is 26° and the forecast high is low 30s so it's probably 50/50 whether the mean can end the string of ANs at 21. 06z GFS was not impressive, <1/4" qpf in 16 days, Fri-Sat is RA and the arrival of deep cold pushed back to the 24th. Next run will be different, one way or another.

A friend took a nice salmon thru the ice on Parker Pond (Fayette/Mt. Vernon, 10-15 miles SSW from my place.) Probably on some cove ice near his brother's home that somehow survived the Christmas deluge. Long Pond in Belgrade is about 2/3 open. Yesterday's low of 9° is the coldest since 12/20 (my last BN day) but still 3-4° AN.

Exactly, which is why this season is even more meh so far than last year's ultra-meh . However, the 12/25 rain of 2.54" is the greatest I've measured in 23 Decembers here and the 29° AN that day is the greatest positive departure for any day, 1° more than 3/22/2012.

Need some near zero nights to put safe ice on the lakes. Don't need -20.

Dec-Feb last year was the most blah met winter I can recall, mitigated somewhat by some post-equinox storms. So far, the current one is worse. It would take an amazing 2nd half of met winter to drag it up to "C" level.

We shoveled and (more often) scooped snow until getting that Trac-26 for the 1994-95 winter, and of course only had 2 storms worthy of pulling the starter cord though it was a bit different in 95-96. The 4 years in the Fort Kent back settlement we averaged 144" with seasons of 186 and 171. The plow would clear about 2/3 of the road going uphill and since we were on that side of the road the banks on our side were twice as high as on the other. When the snow got deep the plow driver had the wing pushing back as much as possible and when a driveway was encountered snow was spread far and deep into it. Things were at their worst in the April 1982 blizzard - our black Chevette only had a hand-sized bit of color showing when the drifting had settled down. It was a little car but still . . .

My dad bought a Craftsman Trac-26 (8 hp) in the mid-late 1980s and when he passed in 1993 I had it made part of my 1/3 inheritance - brothers in N.VA and SoCal not interested. Tracks were slow but just about unstoppable and though the chute-direction was hand crank it was more solid than my current joystick control. Early in the 2008-09 winter the drivetrain wore out to the point that the friction wheel would only hit the power disc in reverse gear. Engine had never missed a beat but a snowblower that only moves backwards wasn't very helpful. A friend and I took the drivetrain apart and found the badly worn parts, after which I spent fruitless hours on the internet looking for replacements - no one had them. So I had to junk the machine, gave the engine to that friend, and bought my current snowblower (another Craftsmen but according to Consumer Reports it's built by Ariens) the first week of 2011. Not as solid as the old Trac-26 but faster-moving and gets the job done.

Nov was 2° AN here and Dec +4. Jan 1-8 is running +9 with minima at +14. At least the ground is white.

Total boredom on that run, 0.18" qpf (probably wet but it's days 9-10) in 16 days. Though it does have BN temps Jan 20 and beyond. Most recent BN day here was Dec 20.

Also at NYC and PWM plus most places in between. And that's despite a 2-3 day handicap.

11 hours produced 1.0" of 20:1 fluff. For whatever reason the snowplow came down our road to remove the massive drifts. At least he pushed the Jan 2 pile to the end of the town-blow the maintained road so I only have to clear the driveway to get mail. (In past years needed to snowplow the town road and plow piles.)

Way AN and with little temp contrast. Had 32/19 on 1/1 and those remain the month's high and low. 1/1-5 is 8.2° AN, the max +2.6 nd the min +13.7. Yesterday's inch of 20:1 fluff brought out the plow this morning. Looks like we may see the sun today for a bit, something not in view since about noon last Friday.

About 1/2" here - in 7 hours and counting. (All snow is good snow, with very few exceptions.)

Thanks for that info. I looked up a number of NNJ sites relatively close to NYC plus LGA and JFK and found 1983 totals ranging from 60.8" at LGA to 71.1" at Morris Plains. Maybe EWR was abnormally dry compared to the others , though none came within 10% of Central Park. Of course, the idea behind my post was the increase of temperature and precipitation, and how much snow there was in 2011-20 compared to the terrible 1980s.

Now that 2020 is in the books, some interesting (to me, anyway) changes in 30-year norms: Temp Precip Snow Location 81-10 91-20 81-10 91-20 81-10 91-20 NYC 55.41 55.72 50.01* 49.52 23.85 29.07 BDL 50.63 51.16 46.50 47.12 49.66 52.27 Snow data missing for nearly 5 years during 96-97 thru 01-02. BOS 51.76 52.21 43.93 43.43 44.29 49.42 PWM 46.51 47.04 47.28 48.02 62.63 68.77 CAR 39.87 40.43 38.79 40.86 112.36 120.33 Farm** 42.28 42.99 48.37 49.29 86.51 91.57 Average 47.74 48.26 45.81 46.37 63.22 68.57 * The 80.56" reported for NYC in 1983 is probably spurious and may have been tossed. EWR had 22" lower precip that year. If the EWR number is used instead of NYC, the NYC 81-10 drops to 49.28" and the 6-site average to 45.69". ** Farmington Maine co-op. (Western foothills)

Lousy for trying to freeze down winter logging roads, too. As we entered 2021 only the North region of BPL had active jobs, and staff had to scramble after the mega-Grinch to find environmentally safe places for loggers to work. Minima this month are running about 14° AN.

No surprise you're a lot wetter than Burlington, given its downslope site and your elevation. The difference with Pittsfield seems more anomalous. Is that 131" for calendar 2020 or winter 19-20? My 2019-20 was 85.1" but calendar 2020 only 72.1".

Agreed. Normally by now I'd be looking to go ice fishing. This year it would be fishing for ice.

Have not seen the sun since about noon last Friday. Maybe tomorrow.

Had some significantly BN days Dec 15-20, probably helping to keep the mega-band to my south. Since then 15 straight AN days with only 12/30 even close to normal. Looks like we could be another 10-15 days of AN unless things change. Hope we don't challenge the 46 consecutive AN days in Feb-Mar 2010.

Another cloudy flakeless day upcoming, maybe 3. Following the December trend; last month had 21 days I recorded as cloudy, 3 more than in any other month here. Would like some cold - no safe ice for drilling holes yet which is very odd for early January in central Maine. Jan minima running 12-14° AN.

6". Had been bare ground since 12/25. Only our 4th brown-ground Christmas in 23 years. (1999, 2006, 2015 the others)