tamarack

We aren't big on the 4 big network stations, but the political ads have also corrupted DIY/Animal Planet/Discovery/Science to a disgusting degree. Some days back I read that Collins/Gideon total money-wasting was at 98 big big ones, must be into 9 figures by now, most expensive non-presidential campaign in the country. When Judge Kavanaugh was nominated for SCOTUS, opponents in Maine (and elsewhere I'm sure) assembled nearly $4 million in pledges for whichever Democrat would be running for that senate seat, and they told Collins that if she voted not to confirm Kavanaugh the pledges would be ripped up. Kind of like a bribe offering. And the battle was on...

We had a pretty good winter last spring, but met winter was MEH!! No storms over 7", no sustained cold, mediocre pack, etc. CAR had about 150", however, though no real biggies even there.

Garbage for sure - 73-74 was my first full winter in Maine (BGR) and only a snowy April kept it from setting a futility record there. They had more after the equinox (21.0") than before (19.8") and my biggest pre-equinoctial "storm" was 4.5" of near-zero feathers that had 0.10" LE. The airport's biggest prior to spring was 3.3" in December that changed to RA and dumped nearly 3". That was the event that featured 56° in BGR and at the same time 15° at my parents' place in NNJ, while the western half of SNE had a lights-out ice storm. BGR's least snowy winter was 22.2" in 79-80; none came after the equinox.

90%+ leaf drop around our place. The woods has lots of early-drop ash and basswood but even the maples are mostly bare. Only the 80' oak has more than 1/3 of its foliage. At the same time, there are hillsides near the Sandy River in Farmington with <50% leaf drop and still colorful though short on the reds. Another upper 20s windshield-scraping morning here.

The sub-heading for that article, below, is only a small part of its content, but I guess climate change gets clicks (like mine.) Climate change is taking a toll on woodlands in the Northeast. Much of the article was about the need for more arborists, a real issue. CC was noted as a factor but not applied specifically to the trees noted in the piece except in relation to drought, which though currently serious cannot compare to conditions in the (cooler) 1960s. One little part about planting southern trees was puzzling, mentioning black gum, pawpaw and persimmon as tolerant of warmth and drought. In Maine all the black gum I've encountered were in wetland soils. The same person then noted she was planting balsam fir to replace adelgid-vulnerable hemlock. Fir is considered at risk in Maine due to a warming climate; it's about the last species I'd recommend planting in Mass. Considerable discussion of emerald ash borer, not really a climate change issue. I was surprised at the article's dismissive treatment of biological control ( because "it's so expensive!") for EAB, when that strategy is the only option for saving ash in the forest - pesticide application is economically feasible only for valuable specimen trees. Not a bad article overall but had some headscratchers.

110" at Logan is probably about 250% - said the numbers Nazi.

300% AN? 4 times the average? Wouldn't that be near 170" for BOS? 14-15 was super for the eastern half of SNE, but that super? (Just idle curiosity, which has gotten me in trouble before.)

I wonder what killed all the roots on that tree - too much Lesco? And also wonder how it remained upright as long as it did. 0.14" yesterday, winds gusting close to 30 but no issues beyond a few twigs in the road. Also happy to see the GFS backing off yesterday's ridiculous QPF, now under 1" for next week instead of 5". More changes inevitable.

About half of my 142" in 07-08 was "nuisance snow" but it kept building the pack. We take (unless my nuisance 2" is 12" both north and south of here.)

4 PM obs 67mph, TSTM. Fun!

Light RA in Augusta, appears to be letting up and barely made puddles. Really hope 12Z GFS is out to lunch for next week. Tuesday-Friday is our annual forest certification audit, this year in northern Maine. Two days ago that period was dry but latest GFS op has 3-6" RA pretty much statewide, highest BGR to MLT and north. It's Day 6-9 so will undoubtedly change multiple times between now and then, but if it were to verify things would not only be uncomfortable but we might have trouble with flooding on the logging roads blocking the auditor from reaching what he needs to see. (Or blocking our way out of the woods after he's seen it.)

Got 2.8" here.

:Small sample size - 2 stations, NYC and Farmington, Maine - but with PORs of 152 and 128 years: Calendar day precip, 4"+ and 3"+, percent change in frequency NYC: 1869-1969 vs. 1970-on, 4"+ up 74% 3"+ up 95% Farmington, same periods, 4"+ up 127% 3"+ up 44% Not sure if UHI affects precip, though Farmington's population of 5000 probably offers little of it.

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".