tamarack

Yesterday's 12z gfs had the axis of soak running AUG-MLT. Today it's BGR-BHB and points east.

Only 7" from that one at the Farmington co-op, but 4 years earlier they got 17" on those same dates, and the year before that 18.5" on 4/22-24.

We just bought a new outdoor antennae and believe it or not , I can pull in a couple Boston channels, one being whdh. TV fool says tower is 125mi away. Antenna is non amplified and rated for 70 mi. Being up on a hill helps but I'm surprised we can pull that station For sure, as we live in a hollow - good for radiational cooling but crummy for TV. Previous owner had installed a large antenna at the ridgeline of our steep roof, about 20 different elements at least 25' above ground and with a rotator to align things best. Never got Boston but had no problems with PWM and BGR channels. Then came hi-def. We got the "box" all hooked up and got PBS - sometimes - and otherwise just snow/static. We went for satellite (DirecTV) and waited until June to ask the tech to evaluate which trees needed to disappear if we wanted consistent reception. Got about 60% of that winter's firewood from the ones he flagged.

We had but one in 09-10, and I doubt you would want anything like it - 10.7" of 4:1 mashed potatoes, in globs so wet they did not accumulate on even the thickest branches but merely spattered to the ground. And that stuff was followed immediately by 1.1" of 34-35° RA (during NYC's snowicane - so I DID compare there) that turned the mess into 7" of 2.5-to-1 horror. And channeling Will, I was not comparing that storm to Baltimore, but with how close it was to what had occurred 41 years earlier. Exact same dates, another 4-day (plus) storm, but 3-5° lower temps during the earlier event meant 40"+ powder. Doubt we'll see another retro-bomb as strong and persistent, and 6 of the following 9 winters have brought 100" or more.

12z GFS op has 1.4"-2"+ AUG-HUL, peaking at MLT. Yesterday it was in the .1-.2 range. We'll see if the Goofus incredible shrinking qpf kicks in before tomorrow night.

September has the lowest median rainfall here at 2.98", though the average of 3.67" trails JFM for driest. The average is skewed by 1999, with 4" on 10-11 then nearly 6" from Floyd the next week.

That was a weird event, a significant snowstorm on March 6-7 (14.5" here, 8.7" at CAR with temp 11/7) then after lollygagging in the Gulf of St. Lawrence a while, a weakened version started backing up. CAR got 2.4" on the 10th with temps rising to 30 then light RA on the 11th with temps into the low 40s. At my place the retro snow came on the 11th (3.3") and wet 40s on the 12th. At CON there was 20s SN (2.7") 11th-12th then the warming on the 13th. Then the 15-16th brought 5" to CON, 10" to CAR and 14" at my place with some serious blowing snow on the 16th. That was it for snow that season. Last 3 days have had temps 64/44, 68/43, 70/39, average is 67/42 which is -7.5. Equally AN would be 82/57, warm but nothing out of the ordinary. Today will be a tad milder, maybe 73/42.

Last 4 Septembers have averaged about +2 here. Given discussions and models, I think 2019 will fit the pattern. And I expect plenty of sun. This summer has had the highest sunny day share of any of my 22 here, and September on average is my sunniest month. Would be nice if those 2 stats worked together.

The map doesn't extend to northern Maine, and I'd offer that "most" prize to CAR. It wasn't their least snowy winter, just 3rd worst and lowest since 1961-62, but the clincher to me is that they had 7" less than BWI. Next closest those two got was 95-96 when BWI had 57% of CAR's snowfall, compared to 110% in 09-10. Then there's temperatures - JFM averaged 24.98, which is 3.67° above 2nd mildest. To get 3.67° less mild than #2 takes one all the way to 20th mildest. Don't know how many SDs above the rest that JFM 2010 sits, but it's quite the span.

Killed by the sharp cutoff - forecast was 10-16, we had 4.5", and only lost power for about 2 hours. Might've been 2 days or 2 weeks had the forecast verified high end. Farmington reported 8.0", their largest Oct. snowfall on record. I saw about 8" that Sunday morning at 750' on Weeks Mills Road, but the Farmington co-op is at 420', only 25' higher than my place, so it was surprising they had nearly twice our total. 25 miles SSW from that co-op, Hartford (765') had 14". That cold season's biggest snow came on Nov. 23, with 9.7" and nearly half came during the 3 hours I was looking for deer that morning.

I don't think so - no new lesions or fruiting bodies visible. Looks like that tree had some early issues with wet snow and/or ice, but was able to grow out of it.

If you do any clearing near that tree, be super carful not to cause any damage to it. The blight is out there and I've been disappointed by minor wounds leading to blight numerous times.

Fri-Sat-Sun had highs 69/64/68, the cooler Sat max due to considerable clouds while Sunday had almost none. Low near 40 this morning.

Definitely not black cherry - too wide and too glossy. One test for the cherry genus is to scrape some bark and sniff for "bitter almond". The bottom 2 pics look something like glossy buckthorn (which despite the name has no thorns) but the little points on the leaves in the top 2 don't match as well. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Have you seen any berries or such? The buckthorns have small berries that run from dark green to red to almost black. That chestnut is larger than some (blighted and gone now) from which I've picked nuts, but those were getting more sun than yours appears to get. Since chestnuts are monoecious, both male and female trees would need to flower in order to get nuts, though a lone female will produce sterile husks.

Near 40 this morning. Saw HIE hit 34 - probably some scattered frost in the usual NNE/'Dacks locations. Not terribly uncommon for late August.

Noted the apparent zero for 70s Tds in 2008, my one August that never reached 80. (Until this year? Still in play.)

EAB has also slipped across into Maine, from NH in the south and from NB in the north. On my woodlot, about 100 miles from the southern Maine beetle beachhead, white ash is the 3rd most abundant species - red maple is 1st and fir 2nd - plus there's a considerable amount of brown ash. Without human assistance the insect population is said to advance about 2 miles per year - much faster when people carelessly move infested wood. WA appears to include a very small percentage that survive EAB while no such resistance has been seen for brown. Given the cultural importance of brown ash to Maine's indigenous peoples, the beetle could be a real disaster for them.

Maybe he has friends up in Gander, and thinks he's in the banana belt in comparison. As we all old we warm.. it happened to me. It’s happening to others . It’s how seasons in season came to be While I no longer go ice fishing when it's down near zero (keeping my topwater traps ice free is part of the reason), for the most part I don't mind the cold all that much

LOL. (And a pox on such thoughts!) Actually I was trying to push 8" of rain-enriched 3:1 glop off my thawed-surface driveway with a snow scoop as my snowblower was dead, and trying not to push too much of the surface gravel onto the lawn. Much much harder than scooping the 24" dump a year earlier, even though I didn't have to slide the stuff up a 7-ft bank like in 2009.

Lots of things ending in fall, but crisp clear mild days with technicolor forests make it very pleasant for me, even as I scramble to get all my firewood stacked and/or under shelter. Then, as Jeff noted, there's the late fall chase to fill the freezer. (And that's after the early fall bump in fishing action.)

Then there's the reverse gradient for another ice storm, the one that hammered western parts of SNE in mid-December 1973. While my parents were enjoying 15° with ZR/IP in NNJ, we had RA+ at 56° in BGR. Couple hours later BGR temp slid all the way to 51 but NNJ was down to 9, with all IP.

Farmington got 1.5" RA and mid-upper 30s with "T" snow from that one. We were still in Gardiner then, records there not at hand but probably 38-40° RA. That was the winter of no cold air. None that got very far to the south. The region's temp layering during the Jan. ice storm is fascinating. South to north: NYC/NNJ: 60° rain SNE: Rain, 30s/40s. S.Maine: RA/ZR and low 30s, little ice impact. C.Maine & Downeast (inland): Disaster - 2-3" qpf @ 26-30°, essentially all ZR Mts/foothills: 20s with significant ZR but mostly IP, 2-8" accum, little ice damage. Aroostook: Singles and teens, 5-6 days of near continuous snow, 18-27" of 8:1 sand.

During all but the final winter of the 1990s we lived 40 miles to seaward from that co-op rather than the current 6 miles, and had mostly moderate storms there as well. In 13 winters, 85-86 thru 97-98, the largest storm was 17.5" of pre-Christmas powder in 1995 - not even one 18-incher. Total of 8 events 12-17.9" and 55 more in the 6-11.9" range. Never reached 30" depth, got somewhat skunked by the Superstorm (10.3" of gritty 6:1 stuff at near 20 temps, have not found a station in Maine that reported less) and the strongest storm was probably the 8.5" thunderblizzard in Nov. 1989 that ushered in the record cold of December. The bust discussion brings to mind the 2 most contrasting busts in my memory bank. Worst was the VD massacre of 2015. When the blizzard watch was posted the afternoon of 2/13 maps were giving our area 18-24 and discussions hinted at even more. By the next afternoon that had abated to 12-18 as watch became warning. Verified at 1.5" while BOS got 16 and Machias 25. Best will always be April 1982 - could not imagine a better one for snow weenies. Late evening on 4/6 CAR upgraded their forecast of cloudy/cold/windy to include flurries. Less than 4 hours later we had SN+ and I "measured" (a very generous verb in 60 mph gusts) 17" while the flurry-forecast site had 25.3", at the time their greatest snowfall on record. (It's now in 4th place.)

The Farmington data I hinted at. No attempt at storms under 6" as I have only the daily records, good for discrete storms especially since we moved to within 6 miles of the co-op. However, trying to untangle things like Feb. 2008 when we had 4 separate storms in 6 days with several days having accumulation early from one event and late from the next. I could do that in 2008 from my own records, but earlier similar multi-storm periods are pretty opaque. Bigger storms tend not to be "interlocked" in the same way. The data below comes from winter seasons rather than calendar years, so the 2010s include anything in OND of 2009. (Wanted to use existing sorts rather than going through entirely new ones.) The 1890s include most of 7 winters as POR begins 1/1/1893. All others are 10 years, thus the averages are based on 127 years. Decade 6-11.9" 12-17.9" 18"+ All 6"+ Largest 1890s 26 12 1 39 19.0" 1900s 46 9 2 57 21.0" 1910s 45 4 0 49 15.5" 1920s 43 8 4 55 23.0" 1930s 33 10 2 45 25.0" 1940s 30 5 2 37 30.0" Nov. 22-23 1950s 25 8 1 34 22.8" "Their Finest Hours" 1960s 38 9 4 51 43.0" 1970s 42 16 4 62 22.0" 1980s 41 6 1 48 23.0" 1990s 50 12 1 63 18.0" Superstorm 2000s 34 4 9(!) 47 40.0" (or 26.6" I still consider that 40" report for 12/6-7/2003 to be inflated.) 2010s 36 9 4 49 24.9" Totals 489 112 35 636 Avg/Year 3.85 0.88 0.28 5.01 #Yr w/1+ 125 75 29 126 1952-53's largest event was 5.5". 1954-55 had one storm of 6"+, a 15.6" dump in Feb. %Yr 1+ 98.4% 59.1% 22.8% 99.2%

ORH totals for all 3"+ in 60s. 70s, 00s, 10s look pretty flat, separated by the 80s/90s crumminess. I'll have to play this game with the local co-op, though due to its POR back into the 1890s and significantly greater snowfall I'll probably limit things to storms 6"+.