tamarack

The grass isn't tall enough to fall on them.

Had not heard this. Unless the Bears can offer the kind of package they sent to the Raiders for Khalil Mack, just say no. the spider is alive...someone please send help That one looks big enough to dip in batter and french-fry.

Pin oaks in Farmington are 80% (rough est.) leaf-retained and just reaching their peak color - they're the reddest of the oak species I see, though all near here are planted street trees. The large oak 100' from this computer has 30-40% of its leaves; beyond that one only the understory beech/oak have more than a few hangers-on. Zilch for acorns; scouted the 3-stem clump near my back line Saturday and found nada - that's been a decent area to hunt even w/o nuts but was hoping for even better.

Bit of graupel as I type. Season's first frozen.

Reading all those grim reports in klw's post makes me wonder if NNE has the same disease. Maine's active cases have run around 600 in recent days, with hospitalizations ~10 and ICU patients 1-3. Count your blessings...

That storm dumped 10" of fluff in 4.5 hours at Augusta and was still <1/4 mile visibility when I had to leave - wife got rear-ended a couple miles from home and rode the ambulance to the hospital to make sure the clips in her sternum (double bypass the previous Oct.) White-out for the 1st 10 miles but down to SN after that. Had 8" at home, only 5" at Farmington - for hours, radar had a yellow "banana" IZG-LEW-AUG-Belfast and Franklin County was just north of the bright colors. GYX had 15" and AUG probably about the same.

I thought Baikal was the only freshwater lake that had seals.

Got fringed here, 3", but 9" (month's biggest) from the next one, bringing the month total to 46.5", 0.3" more than Dec 2007. (2017 is the snowiest Feb, 46.9" despite nothing during the final 12 days.) Feb 2008 had 11 days with 1"+ and 5 with 5"+, the archetypical endless snow period w/o anything really big. The 6 days 5-10 brought 4 storms of 4" to 6.4" totaling 20.9" plus a 1.8" 'dusting' on the 8th.

Same here. In the (draft) Parks and Lands newsletter for November, the director noted that Parks has set a new record for campers in a season and that's thru 9/30 so the total will be higher than what will be in that report. I don't know how that has worked out for the campers (no outbreaks reported) but to date, there have been no COVID-19 cases among Parks and Lands employees. Also, use of hiking trails on Lands Division (my agency) is way up, though exact numbers aren't documented.

2nd at Farmington too, with 154", only 10" less than 68-69. Farmington's snowiest Dec was 1970, something like 54", and PWM's coldest for any month was Jan. 1971.

Have not yet had to answer a health survey for my job - closest was a survey of attitudes concerning working from home or at the office, as the former has increased more than 10-fold due to the pandemic. So far, my agency (Bureau of Parks and Lands) has had no positive tests. Since that includes many who routinely work face to face with the public (mostly Parks employees, like those collecting entry fees at the gate) it's somewhat surprising.

Maybe it's because of my job site (when not working at home) or something, but Maine - for all its protest-generating restrictions - seems very low key compared to what I'm reading about here. We have a sign-in site on the state website for when we plan to be in our office building and must wear masks there unless we're in a socially distant cubicle (like mine) but there was no other restrictions and I traveled all over northern Maine last week with no problems. (Our auditor from Vermont came and went freely; the other auditor is from Sault Ste. Marie, ON and "attended" the opening and closing meetings on Teams.) Maine has had some recent outbreaks but the overall case numbers are second lowest of any state. Vermont is lowest, and maybe they're going overboard to remain #1?

That's probably true but I don't think we can quantify the difference unless/until recreational marijuana is legal in most/all states. I voted against rec-pot in the Maine referendum, and having seen the tragic results of alcoholism up close I wish rec-alcohol were not a thing, but that ship sailed long since. So, apparently, has marijuana's watercraft. One positive thing I'd say about legalization concerns its reputation as a "gateway drug". If that was ever true, IMO it was because the pot suppliers were the same people who sold heroin, crack, and other things with a greater profit margin. Getting those dudes out of the process will close that gate (if it was ever open.)

Better than that here - Farmington's 2nd and 6th snowiest winters (also #112 of 127) and the 3-winter average is right on Raindance's 130% of normal. (For what all that is worth in October, of course.)

As a NJ expat I can understand that comment, but it depends on where in the state. We have family in SNJ farm country, well back from the shore, and there's little if any "Jersey attitude" there. Also as a NJ expat I realize I'll always be a "flatlander" despite having moved to Maine in January 1973 and worked in the Maine woods for 44 years. I've had almost no pushback, but I've also never carried on like I was a native.

Hope you're hunting not rafting - would be tough paddling while in a wetsuit. In our 3 days in Aroostook (also a couple hours in Piscataquis - Telos) for our forest management audit, we probably saw more than 2 dozen birds, including one that tried crossing the road with 2 pickups bearing down at 60+ on the St. Croix Road. Not enough left to be worth picking up.

Swamps always get filled before freeze-up.

Thanks again for this fun topic. Hope we all get to make a lot of significant entries.

#2 at my place, 8.5" compared to 10.3" on March 23-24. Only 2006-07 had a greater percentage of snowfall in spring in our 22 years here.

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.

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.)