tamarack

If you have ever watched "The Last Alaskans" you've seen how it would be done - in pieces with many miles of sweat. "Life Below Zero" has some similar illustrations.

As the realtors say, location, location, location. Feb. 2015 was one of the coldest months on record in the Northeast, but it did so less with record cold days than with lack of anything but cold days. Farmington set no cold minima records that month though its mean temp is 1.9° colder than any of the other 127 Februarys there. We had 28 straight BN days, only one max above 28 (35°, briefly) and one min above +1 (4°). Contrast that with Feb. 1979. Following the late Jan. thaw (in my 10 Januarys in Ft. Kent, all 5 January days with lows 33+ came that month, 4 in the final week), in Ft. Kent we had 8 straight days with the "mildest" max at -2 with winds ranging from moderate to "must walk backwards" as otherwise a 30-40 gust would bring tears and first blink would freeze shut one's eyelids. Boston had 10 straight days with minima 5° or colder, their longest such period.

If you've got an extra hour, heading on 16 east from Errol and onto 17 in Oquossoc and then south toward Mexico is good moose-viewing country, and the overlook on 17 at height-of-land in D-Town is wonderful. 17 hits Rt 2 in Mexico and thence west to NH. Shorter but probably less moose-y would be Rt 26 toward Upton, reaching Rt 2 a bit east of Bethel. (I never like straight back-and-forth if there's a reasonable alternative. When my parents retired to Woodsville, NH and we were in Gardiner, we'd go west via the Kancamagus and east thru HIE and Gorham, turning south in Bethel then thru the Sumner hills on 219. Saw moose in Sumner as well.)

No real reason to put an elevation restriction on hunting - maybe on camping or extraction methods but walking around with a firearm or bow has minimal environmental impact. Of course, with a moose there's the other obvious consideration. Years ago I read of a first-time moose hunter asking about the best point-of-aim on that kind of animal: "Where do you shot a moose?" "Next to the road!"

That may be the case where you are but here the mid-late 20th had its share of deep could. The local long-term co-op (Farmington, POR from 1893) has reached -30 or colder 30 times. 6 came in the 1970s and 8 in the 1990s. The co-op has recorded 32 days with subzero maxima. The 60s lead with 5, then 1910s and 90s each have 4 and 70s, 80s and 2010s with 3. Records at CAR are similar, though they go back only thru 1939. To me it looks like NNE, at least, has good representation thru the decades. Even the nation's biggest UHI has set some all time records in the mid-20th, though Gotham has not gone below -2 since the freak cold plunge in mid-Feb 1943. However, in early 1961 NYC recorded their longest run of maxima 32 or lower, 16 days with the highest temp of 29. (And big snowstorms as bookends, 27.3" total at Central Park, 40-50 in NNJ.)

Reported at least some RA to cocorahs 4 of the past 5 days, grand total of 0.03". Drought buster?

46/44 Wed-Thurs here, 1st back-to-back 40s since mid-June. About 10F milder with clouds this morning.

2"+ would be great but seeing is believing. GFS shows about 1/3 as much and even its qpf has consistently drained away as an even got closer. 5 days out from this past Mon-Tues, GFS was showing over 1" - we managed to bag a "T" on one of those days.

Or MA/SNE in the 1960s (but not many here are old enough to remember) - not acute but years of increasingly BN precip.

Been quiet there in the past few years. From about 2005 thru 2015 it seemed they were getting 2-3 per year from about Oxbow north, plus the one that chowdered a couple hundred acres in Baxter's Scientific Forest Management Area. Also about a hundred on the adjacent Telos public lands, where it was straight-line winds and maybe one big downburst - toppled trees all pointing away from a central spot.

Or why snowfall norms will bump up all over the Northeast next year, as 1981-90 gets replaced by 2011-20.

Never got below 50 here from 6/19 thru 8/6, a full 7 weeks and the 1st July not to have morning 46 or cooler. I doubt we'll see a run of 10 days with minima 50+ until next summer. Also, the drought is dead, yesterday's 0.01" killed it - 1st measurable since 8/5.

Those fresh-picked cherries are tasty.

Had a shower go by a couple hours ago, small but intense-looking radar when west of here and also when east, but leapfrogged over us without fully getting ground wet. August remains thunder-free here.

46 for this morning's low; may be a couple degrees cooler tomorrow. About right for a mid-August cool spell.

This illustrates the differing expectations in different parts of New England. At my place or at most other NNE places, we do expect continuous cover, and that deep enough to at least cover the grass. Bare ground between Christmas and St. Patrick's Day is anathema. - in 22 seasons here we've had that in only 3 Januarys (2000, 2007, 2012, a total of 10 days) and so far the smallest pack in February has been 5" in 2006. 16 of 22 years March had 31 days of cover and a 17th had 30. We expect what we most often get.

Nice little TS in Augusta about 2:30 PM - may have only affected the SE part of town but that's where my office is. Nothing special but unexpected. Not confident that the ground ever got wet at home. 12z GFS has a 1"+ event for Monday-Tuesday. Of course last week it had a 1"+ event for this Monday-Tuesday. Some folks got even more - Westport Island (midcoast) reported 2.84" this morning while we had about 2.84 raindrops.

Big enough to be shagbark- nuts aren't any bigger but the husk is thicker than on other hickories. If you're at pit 2there's some up Rt 1 in Woolwich, farthest north natural occurrence in Maine. At pit 1 there's several species of hickory in the area.

Handful of drops overnight, first since Isaias, and looks like we got 7-10'ed on the two patches of RA this AM. Had a brief heavy shower an hour ago here in Augusta

Almost. Norway is doing better now but up thru the mid-20th their treatment of the Sami was regrettable. That said, I echo PF's impressions of Norway. Our 2017 excursion stayed mostly on the tourist track, but even the grotesquely huge cruise ships at Flam and Geiranger couldn't blunt the awesome beauty of the fjords. Farthest we got from the heavily beaten track was Trondheim - one of my wife's 4 Norwegian grandparents was born there - and there was considerable tourist traffic there though far from the crush in the two fjord towns noted above. Weather was cool for our trip, mostly under 70F (unlike the next summer with its mid 80s) and we saw some RA each of our 8 days in country, though only one rainout and we had planned visits to Oslo-area museums that day anyway.

Almost exactly what my frost pocket site had - only difference was 56 yesterday morning, but we had a fair amount of clouds each night to limit radiating.

For here, strong ENSO in either direction is usually bad news.

Might ping my frost pocket if that were to verify. Earliest frost so far is Sept. 1. To me, "back is broken" means the 2-month stretch of 5-6 AN days for each BN is done. Could still be 2:1 or 3:2, especially as the downward trek is slowly accelerating. By month's end my average is 73/50 and 90% of such days are pure CoC.

One year we didn't get there until the grass was 2 feet tall - don't think we found any nests on that very laborious mowing. Most nests were discovered painlessly - we'd probably anger the yellowjackets on a nearby pass but by the time we came back (big lawns have some advantages) the swarm was obvious and avoided. One time I quit for a water break and when I came back the lawnmower handle had about a dozen residents with a couple hundred circling for a landing. Oh, and the house next door had an inside corner that hosted for decades a huge honeybee hive. When I was 4, one morning I wandered into that corner (attracted to the sound and ignorant? I have no memory of the event) and got well stung. My mom said my hands swelled up as big as hers and that I slept for 30 hours. Glad that the bees weren't nearly as aggressive as yellowjackets! Elsewhere I less benignly found nests next to our house, next to a brook while I was washing breakfast dishes while camping with a friend, and various other encounters.

The improvement uphill from Smalls Falls blew a wide hole thru the 400-acre tract on Twp E that our agency manages. It also eliminated the steep and curvy stretch that had many many crashes. On balance, a clear win.