tamarack

Tomorrow's version of the 60-day will probably include some significant color changes.

August RA now just 0.10" below my average (4.02") for the full month. Weeds in garden about to go nuts, but it's all good. Unless we were to get a major heat wave, garden moisture is probably all set for the remainder of the growing season. (And I'm really glad I picked heavily on the cherry tomatoes Tuesday afternoon, or things would be bursting all over - may still be but not the 60-70 I already plucked.)

Didn't get the 7-10 split this time - 2.38" reported to cocorahs. Between 6 and 8:45 last evening 2.25" fell, and it's been a long time since we had that intense a rain event with no thunder and no connection to a TC. Sandy River has hardly risen at all overnight, so I don't think the downpour was all that great in extent.

Look for the blue echoes between the areas of juicy green and yellow and you'll find my place. We'll see if anything significant makes it here.

After 4 hours of pulse running between 70 and 170 (normal for me is about 50) they had the little defib all set to go, and the very thought of it scared my heart into behaving. Had an echocardiogram which was as good as could be and then the catheter from the wrist - right coronary artery blocked but the left big and beautiful, having pioneered a "natural" bypass around the blockage. Nothing serious since then, other than having to quit using ibuprofen due to taking a blood thinner. Tylenol does nothing for me while 400 mg ibuprofen was quite effective. Minor first-world problem. What I did find out after getting home from hospital is that my older brother has had A-fib issues, actually fainted while on one of their European river cruises. And he's always been in better shape than I've been, even before he went through West Point.

That first bunch seems to be weakening as it hits the Maine mank. It stays south of me but might wet the ground in LEW. 2nd area now in ENY looks more promising, though it wouldn't surprise me to see its southerly "tail" disappear so the rest slides by to the north - kinda like Monday. We do fine with stratiform, generally terrible with convective.

Stupid, I know. I don't carry a cell phone, but the camera is only 3"/2"1". Even with my JD tractor, There are times i have had to break it down to get thru it on some storms because of the drifting, Which i wouldn't mind doing it every time............. Even having to chop the packed snow on the town road so I can get mail delivery doesn't change the fact that I'm playing in the snow. Of course, last time I had to do that was 1/6/18, chopping the nicely set plow pile from the 1/4 storm so the blower would digest it, on a day with strong winds and a max of -6. (As one of my forestry profs once said, "There's no such thing as inclement weather, just improper clothing.") No problems with the snow, but 8 hours later addressing letters at the dining room table put me into A-fib, resulting in my first meatwagon ride and two days in the hospital.

0.2 miles (or one second) north of my office. Probably I was just driving out of the RA+ in Belgrade Village when that was taken. Our garden was deluged with 0.02" from the north edge of that storm, but I did get to see some impressive towers from storms passing a few miles north of our place, and as pretty a sunset as I can remember. Dry air was moving in, giving a well-defined view of Mt. Blue 15 miles to my west, and the sun was setting right behind the mountain. The silhouette with golden glow behind and orange-to-lavender clouds swirling above would've made a lovely pic if I'd had the tools.

Only for snowfall. When it comes to lawn woes he stands above the masses.

In my experience, yellowjackets that survive early frosts become clumsy and stupid but incredibly pesty. Less aggressive toward me (though their stings hurt like always) and more aggressive toward the grill and the picnic spread. It's like they're focused on their final meal but ready to nail anyone getting between them and the food. I like some 46/27 days in early Oct - sweetens up my late apples (the Haralreds need a sub-30 night or two for the tartness to be under control.) And the 65-45 stuff is wonderful during peak color but can go away before the firearms deer season opener, which for Maine residents can vary from 10/27 to 11/2 - this year, with T-Day on 11/28, season opens 11/2.

Agree. I've gathered data on big, frozen (SN,IP but not ZR) events since moving to Maine in Jan. 1973, choosing 1.50" of frozen precip as a threshold which results in 25 such events. (Going with 2"+ drops that number to 9, too small a sample.) BGR had one "big" in my 3 years there, in April 1975. Fort Kent had 4 in 9.7 winters, Gardiner just 3 in 13, and New Sharon 17 in 21. Prior to moving here I'd not recorded 2 such events in the same winter, but there were 4 in 16-17, 3 in 06-07, and pairs in 2 other winters. The trend I've seen is for more high-qpf winter storms, not less, at least where I've been living the past 46-47 winters.

Cloudless here as well. This is the NNE summer of sunny days and (mostly) modest dews. Those two facets are not unrelated. Another benefit of mowing late is that ground-nesting birds have already fledged at least one clutch by now.

Just like last winter! (In the Maine foothills )

Gorgeous. Wish I'd had my camera driving home yesterday - looking NW there was Mt. Blue sharply (thanks to the drier air) silhouetted against the sunset glow with swirling multi-colored clouds above. I was barely a mile from home but knew that grabbing camera and returning would see the best long gone.

Strongest TS to hit within 10 miles my place was on August 30, 2007. No spinners but hail defoliated much of 7,000 acres of forest, partially debarking some, and damaged roofs, windows and siding on houses in Rome village. There were still sizable piles of runoff-gathered hail 24 hours after the storm. (6-8 miles NW, we had a moderate TS with zero hail - the usual.)

White birch at the head of the driveway is shedding a few brown leaves each day, like it always does starting mid August.

Out of curiosity I checked winter records for the Farmington co-op, including March and looking at records for both minima and maxima (fractions for ties), and both for the full 126-year POR and at 2000 forward. They have set only 5 low minima 2000 on and just one (3/25/14) since 2009. Given the 19 years 2000-on (2019 excluded), an even distribution would be 18.4 record lows for that 122-day period. It's perhaps telling that the same 19 years saw 25 record low maxima. There's cold air still, but the still clear winter mornings just aren't cooling off the same as in earlier times.

Before your head explodes, note that my thermometer location is transpirationally cooled in summer and is where descending cold air gathers for a party when radiational cooling is out and about. August 2008 had a max of 79 and June 2009 just 77, my only met summer months that didn't reach 80. July 2009 only got there once (82), in late month. (Those 2 months of 2009 probably had more days of stratiform RA than in an average OCT-NOV.) We wet Meh That's only 40 times as much as fell into my Stratus.

Have yet to reach 80 this month unless today did so, which I doubt due to the clouds hanging on until late morning. Temps running about 1.5° BN here, so Farmington is probably close to their 1981-2010 norms. Got 7-10'ed by todays storms, nice car wash driving thru Belgrade, very pretty towers not far to the north, 0.02" at home.

Drove thru heavy but not toad-strangler rain for about 10 miles in Belgrade, with a few nice CG strikes but no wind to speak of. Got 0.02" at home, roads dry under the trees, big towers 10 miles at most to the north. Nothing upstream, so 2 bunches of showers/TS (pre-dawn and this aft) brought 0.05" total here. Maybe Wednesday, maybe another 7-10?

You'd be very fortunate to wear out either the Michelins or Firestones, but for $13 a pop I think the Michelins would be worth it - ride/turn/stop probably better by enough to matter. Surprised the prices were that close.

The line from NY was getting skinny by the time it reached Maine, but still managed to split N & S such that only 0.03" landed in the gauge at home. Still gray skies in Augusta.

Given my experience with Rangers/Mazdas and rust, I wouldn't pay for 70K tires to put on a 10-yr-old 180K truck. At least not before having a trusted mechanic tell me there's absolutely none. 125K on the current Ranger and just a teeny bit of body rust, but both the 1992 Ranger and 2004 Mazda had serious rust issues once past 150K, the latter compromising the rear part of the frame.

Snowfall here is almost evenly divided by the Jan-Feb line; it's now 45.0/45.9 but has remained within an inch over the past few winters. May just be the different location, but that 9-year period noted above was marked by front/back extremes. Most front-loaded winters here were 05-06, 09-10 and 03-04. Most back-loaded were 06-07 and 04-05. Those 4 winters 03-04 thru 06-07 had front-back whiplash. Another facet is that, looking only at winters with at least 60% front or back, the front-loaded were poor - 81% of average snowfall with 5 of 6 BN (14-15 the exception), while the back-loaders averaged 118% of average and all 4 were AN. (The 11 other winters averaged 104% of average - those front-loaded ones dragged the average down.)

Another 2010? Farmington's most recent 4-day heat wave came 8/31-9/3 that year. Humid too. Speaking of being stuck, the nearly 2/3 washtub under the eves held a breaststroking bat earlier today, probably was after some juicy bug just above the water last night. Took it out carefully (for both of us) and placed it atop the canoe that's up on sawhorses, and 2 hr later it was gone.