tamarack

The Depot-to-Round Pond fracas was nearly 40 years ago. You're the first person I've read about on this forum who worked in that country, making me a bit curious. Used to be no thru roads from the Blanchet Road to Reality west of the St. John, so I've not seen that burntland country.

2° departure in January is essentially a normal month. Let me know when it's +/-5 or more. In July 2° is significant. (But you knew that.)

Jan. 1994 might be even more stark.

CAR's big heat was 3rd week of June - they tied their all time high of 96 on 6/19. Their 1st 96 was 6/29/1944 and 2nd was 5/22/1977. Both '77 and this year had 95s next to their 96s. record. Comment on VD16 cold - AM was colder but I'm confident that Christmas 1980 was a colder day overall despite the cheap 12:01 max. Did Boston even get above zero that afternoon? At least as windy as 2016, too. And even more anomalous farther north. First CT Lake had 7 AM obs time which preserved their afternoon max of -24, which is the coldest I've seen in the Northeast below 6,000'.

Probably less hazardous than that but still risky, Public Lands had new cabs placed by helicopter atop 3 existing fire towers in northern Maine, Allagash Mountain (near Allagash Lake), Round Pond Mountain and Deboullie. Folks on the towers had to help guide the placements and do the fastening - glad I wasn't one of them. When the next Parks and Lands newsletter comes out, probably next week, it will include pics. The Round Pond tower has an interesting (and kind of silly) history. Some users of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway objected vigorously to seeing that manmade object as they crossed the pond. So Maine Forest service was tasked to get rid of it and did so the easy "redneck" way - remove the hold-down bolts on one side, place a stick of dynamite next to those 2 corners, easy-peasey. Of course, the next year other AWW travelers said that it was terrible that a piece of history had been destroyed by those dumb state people. That resulted in the no-longer-used Depot Mountain tower on T13R16 (a border twp 25 miles to the west) being carefully disassembled and moved to Round Pond, at slightly more expense than was needed to blow the original tower off the summit. (There's an old fable about a man trying to please everybody but ending up by pleasing nobody.)

We had 2 days in Iceland on the way to our time in Norway, though we never got farther than the Golden Circle tour. Spectacular scenery but in a different way than Norway and this forester would chafe at the scarcity of trees taller than 5 feet. On that GC tour the host said, "If you're lost in an Iceland forest, stand up!"

My 5-minute shower grew up just to my east and is now a warned storm, along with one that missed me to the south. Getting a light shower from the 2nd line, which appears to be falling apart as it moves eastward.

The Kousa should be fine in the sun; it's Cornus florida that prefers partial shade.

Even a blind pig finds an occasional acorn. Exactly 0.10" in 5-6 minutes, some rumbles and one louder thunder, perhaps 3 miles distant, too far for the flash to overcome the not-that-dark clouds.

It's actually raining, not just the sprinkles of the past 3 weeks. Not going to last long but still welcome 0- might get a tenth. A 15-mph gust front, too.

The entire Populus genus, aspens, cottonwoods and poplars, have relatively weak wood and roots. Some of the hybrid poplars grow incredibly fast but are short-lived. Where I grew up a neighbor had 4 Lombardy poplars (narrow crown so not a good shade tree) that were about 10 feet tall when we moved there in 1950 and by 1970 they were 80 feet tall and dying. When I was at U. Maine I once walked by the woodsmen team's practice site and saw "cookies" of some hybrid poplars that were 12-13" diameter with only 11 growth rings and some interior decay. Incredible growth and already heading downhill at middle school age. Kousa dogwoods are pretty but cannot come close IMO to the native flowering dogwood, which I don't think would be available due to its disease issue. Of course, 21 years living on the appropriately named Dogwood Trail (NNJ) makes me biased. The dogwoods there would get about 8" diameter and 30 feet tall but in nature they're mainly an understory tree and might not do as well in full sun.

Many years ago (mid-50s) I attended summer camp in western Morris County, a YMCA place called Camp Morris. Weather permitting, they held the Sunday service in a grove of tall (especially to 9-10 year-olds) tulip poplars. Memories get fuzzy after 65 years, but those trees were probably 20-30" diameter with clean trunks up to 40-50 feet or more and who knows how tall - could not see the tops. Like being within a bunch of huge columns. Not many in the woods where we lived in northern Morris, mostly oaks, maples and black birch except for younger stands, which had a whole different suite of species.

Early GFS has about 1.5" for the weekend event. Time for the qpf-reduction process to start?

They're an upland species and those rarely cause root/pipe issues. One of the fastest growing hardwood trees and can attain very large size even in Maine, which is north of their native range. The one in Farmington is 30"+ diameter and 75-80 feet tall. One in Topsham near the 201/24 intersection is more like 40" and 90 feet. Historically, tulip poplar was one of the very few species that could approach white pine for the tallest Eastern tree. Fall color is an okay yellow, not great but would be a nice contrast with the red maple (that I had forgotten he had planted.)

What I'm seeing so far is bright echoes over the northern half of Maine, with them moving almost due east. For a forecast of early afternoon convection, upstream radar is not encouraging.

Flakes and/or IP on the Rockpile? 6 PM shower put another 0.01" in the gauge, now 0.04" since Isaias. Can we keep dodging the strong TS like we've done all summer? A couple last month gave decent rains but the donner and blitzen has been lacking and 20 mph is tops for winds.

Maybe a red maple? Lots of seeds in spring but they're small and soft - a mulching mower would take care of them. Unbeatable fall color, will grow reasonably well on low-fertility soils and fast on good dirt, not a major sewer-line chaser. Doesn't like salt but more tolerant of it than sugar maple.

Started out interesting, with my warmest May daily mean since moving here in 1998, followed 3 days later by my coldest June daily mean. Then we touched 90 later that month, only the 2nd time since 2005. The late-June/early-July rains were gratifying but managed to arrive without a single decent light show - only one strike within 2 miles. Since then - mehhhhhhh!

Got the usual 20 drops - makes 6 of the last 8 days with some drops, total 0.03". Can't ever remember having warned storms within 5 miles both north and south at the same time. Reminds me of my one frame of duckpins - 1st ball took out the headpin and #5, 2nd hit #2 and #8 and the 3rd went down the middle of the road cleared by first 2. Wonder what cleared the way for my nothingburger "storm". GYX statement on the southerly one warned of golf ball size hail.

We appear to be neatly bracketed by the 2 warned storms. First one has gone by a few miles to our north with lots of distant rumbles, maybe we can get at least the fringe of the next one. Warning cited winds to 60 and quarter-size hail.

Reported some precip to cocorahs for the 5th time in 7 days this AM, total for the period is 0.03", and not a drop for the 11 days prior to that. Have yet to hear thunder this month and today-tomorrow might be the last chance. August 2008 had only one day with thunder, all other Augusts here had more. Still fun reading about the Mass-acre storms.

My feelings about that.

Another dusty day. Had some useless sprinkles noontime and just enough clouds to spike any real chances of convection.

Less than half were actually at the wedding/reception. The rest were secondary and even tertiary infections. Other than the event being over the 50 max, have not heard anything about masks, social distancing and whatever - hugs on the receiving line?. Helped push Maine's daily new cases into the 20s and a 32, from the earlier teens. Yesterday's numbers noted 459 active cases, 7 in hospital and one in ICU, one on ventilator (presumably the same person.) 14-day positive rate was 0.6%.

To me, cold winters are about as cold as in decades past but are less common now, while warm winters are setting records and are more common. At the Farmington co-op, 1991-2020 temps thru last month are 1.75° milder than 1961-1990. Only June (0.9) and July (0.6) are within one degree and January is 3.2° milder, 16.4 vs. 13.2. Worth noting that 1961-1990 is the co-op's coldest 30-year segment on record, comparing only the standard intervals - something like 56-85 might be colder. Their warmest 30 is 1931-1960, back when the obs site was in town and 1.24° above 91-20. Edit: Farmington's mildest 30-year period is 44.36° for 1927-56. Coolest is 1967-96 at 40.996° (68-97 was 40.998) and with the obs site moved to its current location in Sept. 1966, probably no coincidence that the coolest period was the earliest full 30 years there.