tamarack

Morning GFS says nada thru equinox day. Can I "beat" 2010's 0.6" for least snowy March?

It was, for us, and came after the worst start I'd seen since 73-74 in BGR, my first full winter in Maine. (Not a good intro, especially after the early and abrupt end of 72-73, our first few months after the move.) And we were only a couple degrees from a 50" April in 2007 as the Patriots Day(s) storm had 5" snow and 5" cold RA.

Feb-Apr yielded just 7.8" in 2006. In 2007 those months had 76.2". 2006-07 had 11" thru Jan 13 and 84" afterward. Nov-Dec 2006 each set records for warmth at the Farmington co-op (Dec eclipsed in 2015) and Jan was running +12 before the pattern changed.

My non-winter sig shows that kind of contrast only separated by a single month, though I cherrypicked 12 consecutive month periods rather than calendar years: Feb. 2006-Jan 2007 had 26.9" Mar 2007-Feb 2008 had 178.0"

I call that the "Godzilla effect". As bad as NNE had things, Montreal and surroundings had it worse - a city of 2+ million w/o power. That overall event had some serious geographical oddities. Gorham, NH had RA and so did MWN, setting a new record high temp for January. In between, at 1500-2500' elevations (my estimate) forests were devastated. South to north that storm brought: NYC area: 50s-60s and moderate RA SNE: 30s-40s cold RA, more than NYC. S. Maine: Low 30s, 2-3" precip, moderate ice. Central and inland downeast Maine: Disaster area, 2-3" LE at 25-30, all ZR Maine foothills/mtns: 2.5-3" LE, mostly IP, some SN some ZR, 2-8" accum. (More trees broke on our [then] house lot in Gardiner than on our [current] 80-acre woodlot in the foothills.) Aroostook: 5-day snowstorm, 19-27" with ratios 8-10 to one, temps high singles in Allagash to teens/near 20° CAR/HUL.

Only 8" here, 7" SN from 0.75" LE, pounded down to 5" by 1.10" LE of sleet (3" worth, most coming at sub-20 temps.) Without that warm nose that storm might've been even better than the one 18 days later - April 4-5 had all snow: 18.5" from 1.63" LE. Then a week later another 11.2"/1.15" LE, also all snow, on the way to a ridiculous 37.2" in April.

The conversation about information and things like Twitter reminds me of reading about the difference (in a medical context) between a specialist and a generalist. The specialist knows more and more about less and less, finally knowing everything about nothing. The generalist knows less and less about more and more, finally knowing nothing about everything. The internet and social media are making mostly "generalists" of a lot of us - real knowledge about a few things and very superficial knowledge (and a nice anonymous forum) about many many things.

Similar here, though we had a 3" event. (And zero upslope, as always.) The only system during that time with some meat was 2/16, and our 8" snow came down as 2" sleet. If models after Feb 2 had looked like they do for the 1st half of March, it would've been disappointing, but instead we watched juicy system after system either go OTS or die. Not sure which is worse.

Our record was a few hours shy of 4 full days in the 1998 ice storm. Had anything on our 400' cul-de-sac road with 6 houses coming off Brunswick Avenue's main line, it would've been closer to 2 weeks. (Our phone line was ripped off the nearest pole and it was 13 days before service was restored, and due to damage at the pole end the tech had to install a junction box on a front lawn pine. For more than a month we had a tree phone.) Less than a mile south of our road, a stretch of 9 poles along Brunswick Ave had only one left standing. The vice-president of Central Maine Power waited nearly 3 weeks for his lights to come on. Several thousand more CMP customers were blacked out by the 2017 October gale than in 1998 but 90% of them had the lights on within 2-3 days. The infrastructure damage in 1998 was far worse; probably more than half the CMP customers waited over a week for power and a quarter 2 weeks or more. In our near-23 years here, longest was 36 hours and last April's snowstorm almost matched it. That fall-winter had 6-7 other outages ranging from an hour or two to overnight. We (wife especially) were getting tired of camping out in our own home.

Also, Maine's lower population density means more miles of line per customer. It also has the highest percentage of its land in forests of any state, with only NH even close. (VT and WV compete for the bronze.) Edit: Doublechecked and the gap from 2 to 3 is less than I thought. Top 5: Maine: 89.5 NH: 84.3 WV: 79.0 VT: 77.8 AL: 70.6 No others reach 70. ND has only 1.7% forests.

After 3 late-winter excursions in 1970 put the bug in my mind, I bought a night ski season pass at Great Gorge in NNJ for 70-71. That, plus the Jan ski week at the old Glen Ellen, changed me from a scared snowplower to a low-intermediate parallel skier. Easy to see the bumps at night - no such thing a flat light then.

12" less here going into this month, and current models point downhill from there. Last season finished at C- with its mild wx after Nov and mediocre storms thru met winter. The 2 biggest snowfalls came after the equinox. After 3 straight cold Aprils maybe we get some nice early spring wx?

13kw Generac. Machine was 3 grand but with base, hookup and buying/filling a couple of 100-gal propane tanks it was a 10k install.

Rt 2 was blocked by fallen trees and lines down both east (Rome) and west (Dixfield) but power only blinked briefly here. Had we not had the on-demand gennie put in last spring, we'd probably would've been lights out all day.

12.5" here, season's biggest.

Reached 14° yesterday afternoon, tied with 12/17 for the season's coolest max. Too bad it was spoiled by the cheap 25° high at my 9 PM obs the evening before. Only 5 of 23 winters have failed to post a <10 max. Five have had at least one subzero high.

Certainly was roaring like a lion.

FVE finally got above zero. 1 PM obs: 1°, NW38G53, light snow. WCI -27. (Up from -38 at 7 AM) Glad I'm not trying to drive between PQI and CAR.

Wind is roaring but so far the generator hasn't been needed. Spreading ashes on the icy driveway (ice plus a bit of snow from an overnight flurry) was an adventure - probably 2/3 was blown to who knows where. Gusts probably near 40, twigs scattered about, thin clouds and -1 at 7 AM. Makes 22 of 23 years March has had a subzero morning. In 2010, my warmest March, the low was 11.

Including today, as nothing will melt and the top is solid enough to withstand the wind that's making the house creak, we've accumulated 824 SDDs. Average for the date is 1135.

Flurries/squalls mostly sliding to my south though I might see some flakes (a few) in the next hour. Some stronger gusts but still <30. Temps mid 30s.

It is a good spot for retention, for sure, in part because we're in the woods - stake gets full sun about half the day but no big openings. Also, CAD often keeps us 10-15° less mild than Belgrade/Augusta in SE thaws. 23-year average for today is 21" and tomorrow its 22, tops for the season. Average for peak depth is 29.7" and the median is 27. Tops is 49 in Feb 2009 and 05-06 never got past 11. Only 4 of 23 failed to reach 20".

Looks like that took some siggy ruts on the warmer days last week. Our 2000' of gravel has a good base. We'll get 1-2" of slime before the defrost gets deep enough and some potholes, but no car catchers.

Lots of blue sky opening during the past 10 minutes. Drizzle ended enough earlier to limit rainbow potential. Trees starting to sway a bit with initial CAA gusts, <20 mph.

19". Only lost one inch since Saturday's mushy 2.4". If it's not frigid I hope to be on the ice a few hundred yards north of there on Saturday, by the small island with a nice old cabin sitting on the rocky center.