tamarack

Maybe. I'd note the 2007-08 snow season, with nothing approaching a KU but loads of low-end warning criteria, perhaps analogous to Cat 1&2 events rather than TCs peaking at 45 to 60, and my snowiest winter since Fort Kent. This hurricane season is more like 2004-05, when I had a bunch of small events through early Feb but none even reaching 4". Maybe our TCs could be like that winter, which broke the meh with 21" (and thunder) on Feb 10-11 and 40" more thru March 12.

I'd guess 2020 ACE is less than half of 2005's to date.

That's a great illustration of the Northeast's vulnerability to even a modest (for a hurricane) storm but doesn't alter my opinion of the West Atlantic season being a long parade of weaklings (so far.) And up here the forecast of 1-2" barely made it to 0.7", though even that was welcomed. And we've not had a drop since.

Most of that snow came with temps about 10, with some wind, though we didn't get the good dendrites of farther west - 15.5" from 1.80" LE. Ratio of 8.6-to-1 from tiny flakes. Farmington co-op reported 23.0" but I'd been in town at the height of the storm and later, and their snowfall looked no different than mine. (Not as egregious as 12/6-7/2003 - measured 24" at my place, 40" reported at the co-op. We got to church - 1.5 miles SE from the co-op and 100' higher - during the final flakes and the parking lot had about 2 feet. I'd believe 30, maybe. I had 6" by 9 PM with SN+ and 18" after. Co-op had 14" by midnight - 8" in 3 hr was reasonable - but 26" after midnight was not. With a midnight measure my snow probably would've been 12" in each day. Lots of drifting in that one. )

I should've checked before posting. Hanna (80) and Isaias (85) are the only ones with winds above 65 mph, and the current pair aren't likely to join those two. Meh. In fact, other than the post-equinocal snows, the past 12 months have been one long meh.

Two more in a bunch of dwarf TCs. How many of the 11 so far this year have exceeded 50 mph sustained?

Most abrupt and amazing flip I can recall. Nov and Dec each my mildest here, though 2015 eclipsed Dec. Then Jan was +11 thru the 13th and season total snowfall thru that date was 11". The rest of Jan and all of Feb was -7 with 3 advisory events plus V-Day. 1st 9 days of March were 12° BN with -2 aft max on the 6th and daily mean 32° BN on the 8th (my greatest departure here) plus a warning-criteria snowfall. Had 37" in April to cap the comeback - 11" thru Jan 13 and 84" afterwards. Farmington's snowiest April in its 128-yr POR, 50% more than #2.

Pretty much on schedule. The wetland red maples seem to turn according to the calendar, while their upland relatives (and other species) react to both photoperiod and temperature. Some 3/4-size acorns under the large (22" by 85') red oak behind the house.

Location dependent, of course. First one here was pretty good despite the ratty December - no blockbusters but long snowpack that reached 40" in March. Last winter didn't rate ratter status here, more like meh - not much happened until after the equinox.

I replied in the other thread.

We've occasionally had paper wasps in underground nests here - once did a partial striptease in my driveway (sometimes being at the end of a dead-end road is good) when those critters flew into my clothing on my 4th lawnmower pass by their hole in the ground. They have kind of a reverse yellowjacket pattern, skinny yellowish stripes on a black background.

That's almost too narrow for a kick turn. I thought that Scotch Mist (Glen Ellen's name for the upper lift line at Sugarbush North) was a pucker-power trail, but it's about twice as wide. And though it's steep, it may not be as vertical as that chute, though it has a number of very hard vertical obstacles down the middle. Back when Glen Ellen was a thing I got to where I could ski some black diamonds, but would never set a ski on that one.

As a NJ expat I can relate. However, in 47+ years in Maine only once have I had someone take issue with my being from away, and he was a politician with an axe to grind. CTS (consider the source.) I've never expected to be considered a native, however. Unlike what Skivt2 posted about born in VT vs growing up there, in Maine there's still some of the "Those kittens being born in the oven doesn't make them biscuits", or as a (humorist) Tim Sample fictional routine, "Chester Gormley was 6 months old when he and his family moved to Maine. All his adult life he could never understand why folks considered him to be from away. When he died at age 97, his tombstone was inscribed 'He was almost one of us.'"

Had 3.5" in 2 hours in NNJ from "Doria", August 1971. Storm total was 5.1" and with the previous day's PRE dumping 3.8" we had nearly 9" in about 20 hours. Things had been quite dry so flooding was surprisingly modest.

Weak ENSO has generally been good here, with some obvious exceptions.

Can't say I've seen a hemlock over 100', or at least way over. However, there are superstory pines all over northern Maine that are 120'+. Some in southern Maine too - one spot that stands out is in the woods between Sabbathday Lake and the Shaker village on Route 26. Another is the Gardiner forest in South Gardiner -30+ years ago I tallied pines there that had 6 logs of 16' each plus 25-35' of topwood. I think those trees are still there.

Some oddities on that list. Balsam fir's shade tolerance is only a teeny bit less than that of hemlock, the only species on the list to earn an "S" for light. Also, seeing yellow birch listed as the tallest tree - 100' when nothing else is listed at over 80 - is weird. White pine is the state's tallest native tree by a significant amount. Also, the species with the greatest volume in the Maine forest, red spruce, isn't even listed. (Maybe like the St. John Valley Francophones, they lump red with black spruce, though they use the label "red spruce" - epinette rouge - for tamarack!)

Black locust is also quite rot resistant; don't know if honey locust is similar. Black locust can also become an invasive in the Northeast, outside its native range, spreading mostly by root sprouts. And despite its spreading roots, a lot blew down when Bob came thru, whether due to weak roots or crowns atop a long lever arm I can't say. (Crummy color in fall, too.)

I think "Hardy to -20" may be conservative. The ones on the U. Maine campus in Orono were doing fine last time I looked and once the Stillwater River freezes it gets cold there.

It's what I would've said had I not gone to bed before midnight. White ash will do well in well- and moderately well drained soils and okay in somewhat poorly drained. They like fertility but one shouldn't fertilize a fall transplant until the next spring, as the fall fert. may cause a growth spurt that gets wrecked by frost. Ash seeds (from all species native to Maine at least) look a bit like tiny airplane propellers, and can get carried a long way by the wind. The Dec. 1992 storm that buried ORH produced nothing but wind at our (then) Gardiner home, but there had been a good white ash seed crop and next spring we had about 10 germinants per square foot, sometimes more, and also right in front of our house despite all the ash being out back.

38 44 54 (X2 or 3 - does Hazel count?) 60? (Did Donna make landfall in New England, or offer Cat 1 winds in the region?) long jump 85 91 That's 6-8 from 1900 forward (assuming none 1900-37) - looks more like a 20-year periodicity unless I'm missing something. Of course, 20 yr period isn't 20/40/60/80 due to the stochastic nature of wx.

Longest in my adult life was 4 days in 1998, plus 4-5 hours next day - probably intentional shutoffs to protect lineworkers nearby. Had anything broken in the 400' between Brunswick Avenue and our place, it would've been more like 14 days than 4. The 1953 ice storm in NNJ took out our power for 6 days, but we didn't worry about losing internet or charging our cellphones back then. At my age (almost 7) it was a great adventure. Have yet to lose power due to a TC, only ice storms, wet snow and traffic accidents.

Our 54-55 double play - 5 TCs for New England.

Not all that much blew down from those storms. I'd guess than 98% of damage was from the epic flooding. BDL had 21.3" RA that August, 4" from Connie and over 14" from Diane less than a week later. Farther NW, Norfolk had 9" from Connie and nearly 13" from Diane.

And whether the leaflets are on short stalks or are right on the petiole. Also need to rule out boxelder (aka ash-leaved maple) which has compound leaves like ash though some leaflets are notched. Sounds like you've got quite the puckerbrush thicket there. Brown ash (NNE term for what's black ash elsewhere) also has markedly different bark, brownish (duh) compared to the grays of white/green ash and boxelder, and also a bit crumbly when rubbed.