tamarack

MWN 16°, 54G61, WCI -9. Brisk. Last night's stove load retained enough embers to restart without needing the lighter this morning - first time of the season. We'll see which side of 25 tomorrow morning in our rad pit.

The juicy echoes to our west when I sent the above post fell apart before reaching here. Event total is 1.17", a modest overperformer as the forecast had us in the 0.5-1.0 bracket.

1995-96 was by far (29" ahead of #2) our snowiest winter of 13 at Gardiner, though the thaws left SDDs in 5th place. Five straight months began with cold and snow, finished with mild and wet. Cherrypicking the dates illustrates the contrasts. The top line shows the data for Dec 1-21, Jan 1-16, Feb 1-19, Mar 1-11 and April 1/14 - total of 81 days. Lower line combines the remainders of those months, 71 total days. Avg max Avg min Depart. Precip Snow SN/day 26.4 9.1 -6.4 11.56" 127.4" 1.57" 44.1 24.2 +4.8 14.58 9.2 0.13"

We lived in Gardiner then, 9 miles south from AUG. Oct. 6, 1995: 51/45, 2.33". Tiny shower about 8 last evening 0.01", almost mocking. Dumped precisely 1.00" from the Stratus this morning and radar suggests a final total near 1.5".

We had 2.64" on Sept 25-26 and the local rivers are nearly back to the levels before that event. Maybe 6" spread over 2-3 weeks would have a significant effect on rivers and groundwater.

Katahdin has been whitened above tree line and maybe the lower mts also, but here in the foothills only in 1999 did I see a trace this early. Average 1st trace is 10/28, 1st measurable 11/10 and 1st 1"+ 11/21. More recently, yesterday's high of 82 is the warmest in our 28 Octobers, 2° above the previous record set on 10/9/2011. That 82 is 22° AN.

That 45° range is usually found in late April and May, very uncommon when sunrise and sunset are less than 12 hours apart. We had 71/31; greatest October range here is just 1° greater.

This pic was taken on Sept 18. Sixteen days later it's past peak, with 60-70% leaf drop. Overall (not including places like this) we're high to peak, depending on species mix, about a week ahead of average.

Not here - it's our wettest month and Oct 2005 (14.09") is the most for any month. Our first full month here, June 1998, is 2nd with 12.81". Third place is shown below. J 3.23" J 3.96" F 2.95" A 4.10" M 3.71" S 3.70" (Despite 11.46" in 1999.) A 4.09" O 5.45" M 3.96" N 4.22" J 4.76" D 4.87" TOTAL: 49.27"

Late last evening the temp was 5° lower than same time day before, but this morning's low of 31 was 2° higher than yesterday morning. Warmer aloft - 8 AM at MWN: 46° (and TD -8!)

Our average water year is 48.89". This recently ended one had 38.08", only 78% of the average. 2025 thru September is 7.13" BN and last October was 3.56" BN, giving the water year a dry start.

29 and frosty this morning, tied with 9/21 for season's coolest. Cat lying in front of the woodstove.

Our rad pit didn't happen - low was a modest 39. We had 30 and 29 mornings on 20/21 last month. September numbers Avg max: 69.6 +1.5 Highest: 78 on the 28th, latest for a Sept max Avg min: 44.4 -1.3 Lowest: 29 on the 21st Mean: 57.0 +0.1 Precip: 3.89" +0.19", 1st AN month since May. Wettest day: 1.53" on the 25th. The 2.64" on 25-26 was 68% of the months rain. Other than the storm of 25-26, Sept 2025 continued the drought. Highest and lowest were modest, the availability of sunshine - 67% - was close to the most for Sept. The avg diurnal range of 25.2 was nearly 3° AN, this despite the 3° range on the rainy 25th, smallest diurnal range for any Sept day here.

At the time, the 2.54" on 12/25 was the greatest calendar day precip I'd measured in December here. The low of 43 was 14° higher than the average high for the date. It's now in 3rd place. We had 3.25" on 12 23/2022, less than a week after getting a 22" dump of 9:1 snow. That latter storm began as SN/IP and 2/3 of precip came at temps 30-35. The RA fell atop a solid 15" pack and only brought it down to 12". Tops now came on 12/18/2023 with 4.08", most falling at 45-55°. The 2" pack quickly disappeared, rivers were fairly high due to 2.3" RA a week earlier, and the 4.21" 2-day total produced the 2nd highest peak flow (only 1987 had more) on both the Sandy and Carrabassett Rivers. Had the 2023 storm fallen on that 15" pack of 2022, the 1987 record might now be #2.

I record snow depth at 9 PM, and have had bare ground at that hour of Christmas night four times in 27 years - 1999, 2006, 2015 and 2020. On that last date, my 7 AM report for cocorahs was a fast-disappearing 2", as we had moderate RA and near 50 at report time. The 54/43 temps were +28, the greatest AN for any day since moving here in 1998. (2nd is +27 on 3/22/2012.)

December 2015 blew away warmth records all over the East. At NYC the average was 50.77. That's +11.9 compared to the 1991-2020 norms and was 6.2° milder than their 2nd warmest (set last year). In fact, 12/2015 was 2.9° milder than the November norm.

That lower sun angle parboiled me as I drove to BGR and back, especially the return trip at 2:30-4 PM. The car's failed A/C added to the oppressive effect, even with temps near 80 rather than 90s.

Thank you for making this fun table for 14 years. I doubt that many knew how much work and $$ it took to keep it working. May you have a low-stress winter with some big 'uns.

Quite the chunk of chert. Some of that stuff has been found in ancient indigenous settlements west of the Great Lakes, as it was great for fire starting.

The big (24" x 90') red oak near the house still thinks it's August. Nearby white ash are almost bare, red maples near full color (even away from the swamps) while sugar maple is just beginning to color.

Looks like he was on Little Moose Mt, and that area has a lot more spruce and fir than pine/hemlock, also very little oak. Beech tends to tarry in coloring (unless it's diseased) and some sugar maple turns significantly later than most of that species.

Storm total 2.64", almost as much as July/August combined (2.85"). About 1.8" fell 5 PM-midnight. Neither the Sandy nor the Carrabassett have risen much, about 1/2 foot. The upper parts of their watersheds received less rain - 'Bassett 1.14" and Rangeley probably about the same. Sounds like orb weavers. They’re great at killing other bugs. Non venomous to humans I've read that almost all spider species are poisonous - it's how they eat - but very few are dangerously poisonous.

From about 60 feet to the Stratus, looks like about 0.5".

3rd straight cloudy day - hadn't seen that since mid June. First 2 produced only 0.13", today should bring considerably more.

Trace overnight, 0.06" mid-day yesterday - took 3 hours to reach that total. GYX is bullish on +/-1" thru early Friday.