tamarack

In other news, 20 of the top 25 in KevinMA's snow table are from CT or MA, and tomorrow's event will only reinforce that trend. I suspect climo will have had its way before winter is done, however. And as for squalls, I think I've seen perhaps 3 since moving south from Fort Kent in 1985. (Not counting the one that caught us on I-80 in western PA 8 years ago.)

We'll do well to even reach 2" here, though some real snow would be nice atop the near-bulletproof 2-inch "pack" left after the weekend deluge. At least the month's precip (2.68") is still lower than the snowfall (2.9".)

Back to light rain after several hours of moderate, total now 1.46". Saw that the Presumpscot is a foot over flood. My wife was taking friends to their family Christmas party in Westbrook, so I hope they live on high ground.

Steady light rain, 0.59" (with some IP at the start} and temp 34-35. That's not going to melt much of the small glacier outside unless we get those upper 40s now showing on the coast.

Only has to beat 2.8" at my place, and a 3" rain tops the entire month's snow to date (and I'll still be BN for temps when the storm moves on.) Probably (hopefully) it won't happen, unless I can count the 0.53" RA from Mon-Tues.

Almost 2" more than here in the snowy foothills, though we still have about 4" of armor plate atop the lawn, so the nice fat doe (which knew that the season ended last Saturday) had to work in getting a meal from drops beneath the apple trees. My average snowfall thru 12/13 is 11.9", so after running ahead of the average since Veterans' Day I'm now slightly behind. Average thru next Tuesday as 15.7" and models point more toward 2-3" than the 5" needed to jump back ahead of average.

As a forester in Maine, I view ice storms as by far the biggest wx threat to the resource, except perhaps at/near the coast. As a wx weenie I find ice storms to be one of the most interesting of winter phenomena - 1998 is the most impactful wx event of my experience. Looking at serious ice storms at or reasonably near to where I lived at the time: --Jan. 1953, NNJ: Huge tree damage, power off 6 days at our home, about 700' asl. Below 500' mostly RA. --Dec. 1970, NNJ: Serious tree breakage but nothing like 1953. Brief power loss --Dec. 1973, Northeast: This event devastated W CT and SW MA. Much of that region was still dark when we traveled BGR-NNJ for Christmas a week later. While utility poles were crumbling in CT/MA, my parents in NNJ had ZR at 15° while at our BGR home it was 56 with RA+. --Dec. 1983, N.Maine: About the same magnitude as 12/70 in NNJ. We lost some trees but power stayed on. --Jan. 1998: Perhaps the most extensive damage and areal impact of any North American ice storm on record. Damage near our Gardiner home was worse than 1953 at our NNJ place, though not by a whole lot. No power 4 days, some nearby folks 2 weeks+. --Dec. 2008: Mild at my current home, devastating on central MA hills and nearby. --Next???

The silver lining (probably corroded) is that arctic cold over bare ground might take out a lot of mice and voles, either directly or by exposing the critters to extra hungry predators. Then maybe, just maybe, there will be a lot fewer ticks around next year.

Same reaction to the GFS bowling ball around the same time - EPO at 961 mb.

Since I like snow in any part of snow season, I'd take the 30" March. Another reason is that, even though December averages 12% more snow than March (19.6" to 17.6"), March has recorded 9 storms of a foot or more compared to 4 such events in December. A third is average snow depth. Over 21 winters Dec. 1 has averaged 1" (only 5 had 1"+) and increases to 9" by the 31st. March begins with 21" on average and still has 13" on 3/31. To each their own. Do you know why that is exactly? (Why sunsets are later but the days are still getting shorter?) Years ago I read a fairly detailed reason for this, and came away confused. Not sure whether that was due to a poor explanation or my lousy comprehension.

Only 4 of 21 Decembers with wire-to-wire, with another 6 having 26-30 days with 1"+. Average duration is 21 days and median 24. Years with 130"+ consecutive. * means 31 in Dec. 18-19* 162 days 13-14* 142 14-15* 142 07-08 140 02-03* 137 16-17 136 17-18 132 Other end of the spectrum - years with <100 cons days 11-12 73 15-16 80 99-00 84 (zero in Dec) 05-06 95

Only 1/2" RA so far, thus still 4" of high-LE stuff at the stake this morning, likely down to 2-3" by evening depending on when the CAA gets working. Might disappear with the end of week event, probably only the 2nd time I've would've seen a pack with 2"+ LE disappear during met winter, the 1st being Jan. 1995 in Gardiner when 36 hours of 50+ temps/dews augmented by 1/2" RA ate a 14" pack.

New Year's Eve 1962, by far the coldest WCI I experienced before moving to northern Maine. NYC temp was 13/4 while my NNJ home had 5/-8, and winds that tipped large bare-limbed oaks out of semi-frozen soil, smashed windows and nearly tore the 10-12" ice from a nearby reservoir, piling about 20 ft worth of it on the lee shore. Along with the 1950 Apps gale, the strongest winds I've ever felt. It was the backside NW-ies of a monster storm for the BGR region. I was hoping Tex (whom I always watched if at all possible) would have some memorable comment on that day's wx but he'd had too much New Year's Eve cheer to be coherent.

Would be, except there's only a small arc between aiming too close to the neighbor's house (500' away, but still) and shooting my tool shed. Tiller is over 40 years old but it still works; would hate to lose it to friendly fire. Dense fog lasted less than 2 hours in Augusta, with visibility currently about 3/8 mile in moderate RA. Real warmth hasn't reached here yet, but 40° temp/dews still not nice to the pack.

Have not fired the .45 Hawken reproduction in several years, though I ought to burn some powder next fall. However, we've been putting the house back in order from the rearrangements needed to host daughter/husband/7 grandkids over Thanksgiving in a small house with one bathroom. Might still be worth a look at how the deer travel before reaching our lawn, for some future ambush.

Elevated valley? We were a relatively modest +1, only the 3rd coldest morning of the season. In other news, now that the general firearms season for deer has ended, those critters have become interested in the abundant drops beneath our most productive apple tree - had 7 in our 1/20-acre yard yesterday afternoon. It's traditional - no matter how many fruit-softening frosts and freezes in November (a lot these past two years), the deer don't move in before December.

Dusting of gritty flakes earlier at my place. Now awaiting the bad news.

When we lived in northern Maine, occasional cloudless and calm mornings with temps -20 or colder would feature tiny sun-reflecting crystals seemingly coming from nowhere as the intense cold was wringing out the last tiny bit of moisture from the air. This generally occurred within an hour or so of sunrise. The French had a term for it that translates as "the cold coming down."

Forecast: zero. Verification: 0.1" Not exactly worthy of "bust."

One moonless evening last winter we had light snow and the brighter stars were visible. Probably the flakes on my face came from clouds that had moved east while the snow drifted downward. 0.1" dusting last evening, which was 0.1" more than expected here.

Assuming that "all of us" refers to SNE east of the Berks plus Maine/NH coastal plain. My little 6" pack has 2" or so LE and points in Aroostook have 15-20" OG. If we get enough warmth/rain to take out all of that, we'll have some flood headlines to go along with it. My guess for here is that the torch leaves the yard with a bulletproof 3". Early Grinch isn't a true GRINCH.

Thanks. Didn't want to think I was adding stuff for nothing.

My 7A-7A measurements are for cocorahs, while I've been doing obs at 9P since moving to Fort Kent on 1/1/76 and wish to keep that data as uncorrupted as feasible. For the snow table, I pick the snowiest and/or most impactful date of a multi-day event to add to my record. That retains the depth of entire storms. Last April is illustrative: For my 9P obs on 4/8 I recorded 3.5" with 0.2" falling soon afterwards. Then came 3" in 2 hours the evening of the 9th with another 0.5" coming after 9P. My daily records show 3.5" for the 8th, 3.2" for the 9th, 0.5" for the 10th, while my entries into the snow table show storm #1 at 3.7", labeled as on the 8th, and storm #2's 3.5" called the 9th. May seem more complex than necessary but it works for me. Edit: Just read Kevin's "combining" post (after posting the above, of course.) Since that's how my entries are made, such combining should not be needed.

The bottom half of my 7" is like armorplate - the grandkids stayed on top and sometimes Idid too. The period Nov. 18-24 brought 2.02" precip and 1.6" snow with only one day getting milder than 34 - the 21st with 38 and no precip. Toss in the Thanksgiving event and it's 3.01" precip and 4.1" snow, with almost no melting but some settling. The 2.8" Tuesday is the fluff coat that could quickly vanish in a warm rain, but the stuff beneath is a lot tougher.

That's how I've recorded my "SnowLiquid" spreadsheet for my years in Maine, though I haven't included the smaller events, mainly those 2"+. Full winters have run from a high ratio of 13.62-to-1 for 1981-82 in Fort Kent to the low of 8.33-to-1 last winter.