tamarack

Though Maine's new COVID cases are up from a month ago, their active cases have been running about 550 and hospitalized 10-15, ICU 1-2. With newbies averaging about 30/day, that plus actives would mean about 18 days from Diagnosis to recovery, which seems a bit long given the low numbers in hospital. Seems like Maine CDC has remained pretty conservative about declaring recoveries.

That's why a winter with 112" snow, about 125% of average, was frustrating - I had 4 of those mega-busts, events that verified at 1/8 or less of the low end of the forecast range. In addition to the SNJ bust (sad because it would've been the biggest storm ever for the snow-loving grandkids) the other 3 were: --November 2: forecast 4-8 (had been 8-12 the day before) verified at 0.5". Meanwhile the midcoast north of PWM got 8-14" and places downeast about 20. --December 9-11: forecast 10-16, verified at 1.2" plus 2.5" of 33-34F RA. Meanwhile western Maine mts above 1500' got a 15-25" paste bomb. --V-Day massacre: Forecast had been 18-24 when blizz warnings were first posted but dropped to 12-18 just before first flakes. Verified at 1.5" while BOS got 16 and Machias 25. (That eastern Maine town at 20' elevation had pack climb to 74" that winter, more than 2 feet higher than any winter at my pack-holding site. Best I could do in 14-15 was 31", barely above my average.)

We're in the woods of northern Maine all next week. Isaias came up to threaten our annual peer review field trip, so why not have Delta mess up our green certification audit? 12 hours ago, PhineasC said: I've had plenty of all stainless stuff rust out over the years though. There are different grades of stainless steel. "Stainless steel" is a marketing term. The military's "CRS" (corrosion-resistant steel) is more honest.

That was the only double-digit snowfall I personally witnessed that good-but-frustrating winter, and my only November storm of 10"+, anywhere. We did get 20" on Jan 27-28 but my only "witness" was behind the snowblower 12+ hours after final flakes. During the storm we were in SNJ, anticipating the forecast 12-16 there, which verified at 1.5", all of which was gone less than 4 hours after snow stopped.

Quaking aspen is usually the last to change, among trees that actually become colorful. There was enough around Fort Kent, often in abandoned farmland, to give us a 2nd look - yellow/orange/red in late Sept and all yellow about 10 days later.

Maybe "suspect" would be a better word. Or why we opened the wallet for an on-demand gennie last April, after several significant (up to 31 hr) and minor outages beginning last Oct. Ran for 10 hours last Wednesday - I can recall winder days in the "oughts" that did not affect power, or at most a blink or two.

That was the light-pillar storm at our place in Gardiner - vertical beams above the streetlights. We were getting rimey SN+ at 5° while 30 miles east RKD had 40s and SE gales. Then temps rose to 30 then dropped quickly to the minus teens. On I-95 south of BGR it had briefly risen above freezing and the snow plus cold froze lumps of stuff so solidly that one dared not exceed 10-15 mph, or risk having one's fillings shaken out. Even a grader was having trouble getting it off the pavement. That 12/12/2008 map is reminiscent of the "layering" during the Jan. 1998 ice storm: NYC area - 50s/60s and some RA. SNE - 40s and more RA. Southern Maine - 30-35 with cold rain and/or light/moderate ice. Central Maine (IZG-AUG and on downeast between Rts 1 and 9) - disastah, 27-31 with 2"+ ZR. Western Mts/foothills - mid-upper 20s and mostly IP, with some moderate ice. Aroostook - singles to teens, 18-27" of 8:1 cornmeal over a 5-day period of near constant precip.

To this forester, "BS" is unfortunately dismissive, and I think that the literature review posted by Don S. on 9/24 support that opinion. We need to be doing much much more in energy sources/use and lifestyles to mitigate the increasing effects of climate change, but that's a long-term project. Improved land/forest/vegetation management can reduce the hazards in the short term, especially in the wildland-urban interface. It's not either/or, though cc-mitigation must be a global process while improving land management is more local. (And when I use the phrase "long-term project" it's in the sense of growing trees, as exemplified by this proverb (either Chinese or Japanese, can't recall), "The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago; second best is today." Same goes for cc-mitigation.)

I'd put that next to 3/1888 in the Hudson Valley, with April 1982 not far behind. 2/78 is right up there as well. (Not quite old enough to have seen 1888 but I'm 1-of-3 for the others - 2" in Ft. Kent from 2/78 and 4.5" from the Octobomb, while 4/82 blasted Aroostook.)

About 30 years ago when we lived in Gardiner, we were headed to my dad's place in Woodsville, NH on the Saturday of the holiday weekend and as usual we rode the Kanc westbound and would drive HIE-Gorham-Bethel coming home. Many vehicles but no issues until we were about 1/2 mile west of the hairpin. From there it was 2 hours (4-6 PM) to get the 7 miles into Lincoln. The first hour we played leapfrog with 3 college-age ladies who were on foot, then "sped" past them at 5 mph. We had no set time to get to dad's, it was in the 70s and colors were late that year and still beautiful, so we put the 5-speed Cavalier in neutral, opened the windows and coasted. Never saw any particular cause for the jam, but maybe the Loon leafpeeper lift had closed and traffic out of that place overloaded the highway. No such issues thru Kinsman's Notch, which was just as pretty.

Maine's record pike was 31+ lb and 47", came thru the ice on North Pond in February thus fat with eggs. Back along I took a 30"/8 lb pike from Great Pond in March and the day before that Great Pond fattie a retired fisheries biologist caught a 33"/11 lb fish a few yards from where mine had come out. Years earlier I'd caught one 33" and 8 lb at North Pond in May - post spawn. 3 lb of eggs in that 11 pounder? No wonder pike populations can skyrocket.

Water year here finished at 45.88" which is 3.11" BN, all due to AUG/SEP which combined for 3.08" compared to the average of 7.52".

Unfortunately, not much if any of that has trickled back to forest landowners and loggers. Markets are tight and prices modest and not moving much.

Took about 9 hours to get 0.20" yesterday. Had it been the first RA in weeks the moisture would not have penetrated an inch, but with 1.14" on 9/30 moistening things, even 2/10" is helpful. Surprisingly cool (30°) this morning. Fortunately it was just wet in the garden (some shelter from the woods to its east) and the peppers are now safely inside w/o frost damage.

If "going to renewables" means total elimination of fossil fuel use by 2035, IMO that would be a bridge too far - 70-80% seems more doable for this non-expert. The transportation nut will be a hard one to crack. I see moving to renewables for electricity generation as doable but creating the necessary technology and distribution system seems a bigger hurdle. For one thing, we'd want/need batteries in vehicles that charge a lot faster than today - it's moving in the right direction and I'm confident there's lots of research but wonder how far (and soon) it can go. We might need a nationwide effort in the same general manner as creating the interstate highway system.

March 1960 was 18" cold powder, and 8" was on the ground as we climbed aboard the buses for the midday release. That Dec we watched the Giants and "Washington Football Team" trying to play with 8-10" on the ground/tarps. (Field had 6 full width by 20 yard tarps, crew spent 45 minutes almost getting one moved off and the coaches said forget it.) It was well after dark when the real stuff reached NNJ but slogging thru it next day - opener of NJ firearms deer season - was an adventure. My friend and I slogged, my dad found a nice oak to lean against and dropped a little buck in its tracks, waited for us to return and handed me the knife. Eight years later when I finally shot a deer, no one in sight, I was glad for the lesson. The Jan/Feb storms were separated by more than two weeks of temps well below freezing - 16 consecutive days for NYC, longest such run on record - and depths around our place probably reached 45" as places within 15 miles recorded pack of 50"+, tallest in NJ records by nearly a foot. By late Feb it was all gone. 12/24/66 I was heading home from hunting (squirrels/partridge) in SN+ when I heard a loud noise - sonic boom? Couldn't be thunder, could it? In a snowstorm? Next boom made it clear, my 1st thundersnow and I've experienced only 2 since.

It seems to be. The US Senate is a tight race as well, so money is pouring into Maine to pollute the airwaves. As of a couple days ago, $98 million had had been thrown at that race with the Ds tossing a bit more than half. I've heard that it's the most costly non-presidential contest in the country. After about 100 of the Collins/Gideon ads, one for Jean Shaheen sneaks thru. Getting back to wx, September stats. The month started warm, had a very cool middle (1st time here I've had 4 straight mornings in the 20s) and finished with dewey warmth - 27-29 averaged +15 and wiped out the last of the BN margin. Avg. High: 69.0 - 0.95 AN, warmest was 79 on the 10th Avg. Low: 45.0 - 0.39 BN, coldest was 25 on 20,21. The 64 on 9/28 was warmest by far for so late in the season. Month avg: 57.0 - 0.27 AN, 2nd consecutive month within <0.5F of average, both AN. Precip: 1.29" - 2.26" BN and 2nd consec month >2" BN. Aug/Sep total 3.08", avg. 7.52". Had 1.14" on the 30th, preventing this month from being the driest I've recorded since October 1963 in NNJ. 10th of 23 Septembers with no thunder.

Finished with 1.14". 12 miles west Temple reported 1.76". All that water gushing into the Sandy brought its flow from 41 cfs all the way to 70. Lots of dry dirt to saturate before much gets into 4th order watercourses. At least the river is no longer setting low flow records.

50%+ leaf drop after yesterday's howler, though that's augmented by the large component of white ash, all of which are sticks. Can't recall another fall with this much drop by Oct. 1.

Probably 80-85 at Skowhegan - they usually get a bit less than my 90 - and Jackman runs 105-110. The hills around there must do significantly better; our timber harvests at Holeb, 10 miles west from Jackman, and Sandy Bay, 20 miles north at the frontier, always have much deeper snow than in town. Edit: Saw 100k+ outages in Maine. Includes our place, so the gennie we put in last April gets its 1st workout.

Hope it chooses to wander west about 3 AM when Rt 1 and the Pike are almost empty.

In my NNJ days we had only one measurable October event, 0.7" on the 26th in 1962. High at my place was a cool 34° and football practice was quite chilly, especially as Fridays were only walk-throughs, not much to help stay warm. (Ironically, exactly one year later was my first game playing all the offensive and defensive snaps, in mid-80s heat - sweated off about 15 lb but that was one of only 2 wins for us that year.) The winter of 2006-07 sucked here...it was great for LES belts and good for NNE. Good for NNE from Jan. 14 on. Until then met winter temps were running about +8 here and the 11"of snow was exactly 1/3 of the average thru 1/13. The rest of that winter (thru mid April) brought another 84" snow with temps significantly BN. Most schizophrenic winter of my experience.

3 hours ago, powderfreak said: Yeah that was some impressive state wide rain in VT. Just heavy rain all night ripping straight up the length of the state. Any drought done. September rainfall went from record low to probably within 1 SD of normal lol. Still some work to do here. Thru July 2020 was almost exactly on the average, but August's 1.79" was 44% of avg and 2.3" low. If my 0.79" at 7 AM grew to 1.5" this morning then September will look a lot like August, 1.65" total, 45%, 2.1" BN. October has been my wettest month, averaging 5.68". If we meet that, Stein is in the grave.

In 22 Octobers here I've had 1"+ snows in 4. Two were ratters,05-06 and 11-12, and two were good to great, 00-01 and 18-19. The Farmington co-op has a weak correspondence between temps and snowfall - BN October/BN snow; BN November/AN snow. That co-op has recorded 27 Octobers with 1"+ in 127 years. Snowfall in those years average 91" and the overall average is 90". The 8 Octobers with 4"+ average 93". Since the 27 with 1"+ average 3" and the 4"+ years average 5", Nov-May seasons for each run 88", about 1" BN as Octobers overall average 0.7".

Skies brightening in Augusta, and the AP clocked a 49 mph gust for their 10 AM obs. Expect the wind to mostly go away during the next hour.