tamarack

Signs of spring this week, other than the usual cold rain: --Wednesday morning - turkey gobbling just out of sight in the field across from the house. --Thursday (and especially this morning) - Worms on the sidewalk, means the ground has thawed enough that the rain drives the poor critters up for air. Storm total precip (all RA) was 1.83" at my place thru 7 this morning. Probably not quite enough to enable the Kennebec to wash the west-shore parking lots in Augusta.

That might excite the Kennebec a little bit.

5+ feet atop Sugarloaf - would be a challenge to skin up the mountain in yards of wet snow.

In the 54 days from Jan.25 thru March 19 that year I had 63" with up to 31" depth, nice AN stretch. 120 miles east and a mere 20' above high tide, Machias recorded 137" and the pack built up to 74" in mid Feb and stayed above 50" for more than a month. Most frustrating "good" winter in memory. Happening now is more classic "wheel of 'rhea"....we might as well relive May 2005 for a few days coming up. Far, far less torturous in the 1st week of April than the 4th week of May. In 2005 that week brought 5" RA over a 5-day stretch that never got out of the 40s except for one morning in the upper 30s.

Beats my 15" on 4/1/2011. Since the March thread is moribund, I'll put my numbers for the month here: Avg max: 39.9 +1.6 Mildest was 54 on the 9th. Avg min: 21.1 +4.9 Coldest was -2 on the 2nd. All but 2010 of my 22 Marches have gone subzero, though -2 is tied with 2004 for 2nd "mildest" monthly low. Avg mean: 30.5 +3.3 5th mildest of 22. Precip: 3.12" 0.50" BN Wettest day was 0.78" on the 13th. Snowfall: 15.5" 2.0" BN 8.7" came on 3/24,part of the season's biggest event,10.3" on 23-24. Snowpack: Depth briefly reached 21" at 7 AM on 3/24 but that day's sunny high 40s collapsed the powder to 15" by my 9 PM obs time. Tallest at 9 was 18" on 3/1,2. Temperature was D-level but snow gets a C, raised from C- (usual for snowfall 80-90% of avg) due to the 10" event, a nice if brief break from season-long meh..

Actually took about 60 minutes of partly cloudy. Anything not in shade is gone. And April install? In 21 years I've yet to record a single cooling DD before May, though 4/28/09 was close (89/41 but desert dry and 4/29 was 58/34.) Haven't had a minimum 60+ (where stickiness begins) prior to 5/26.

Still hanging around 30° under the clouds in Augusta. Spring sun working on last evening's 2" of fluff but it's slow going so far. Sun comes out for 30 minutes and it's gone.

The Rangeley area lakes show up bright and white, but not the Belgrade lakes, which also remain almost totally ice covered. Odd.

Was a bit surprised to find an inch new at home, similar to the most I saw on Mile Hill, 6 miles south but 400' higher. Most accumulation came 1-4 PM and max temp was 32, after the 31/5 on Monday.

Madawaska cocorahs reported 7.6" thru 7 this morning and 44" OG. Somebody's having winter...

Had a coating this morning and it was snowing lightly when I left home. Cocorahs observer about 10 miles to my west and 800' higher reported 1.4" at 6 AM. Still snowing at FVE at 4 PM.

Another sign of coming spring - yesterday there were about 50 geese on Belgrade Stream at the Rt 27 bridge. Since those birds invest several hundred miles of effort on the chance that their destination will be ready for them, they can't afford to be wrong. I think their arrival is about a week earlier than usual. Edit: Checked back and found that last year's goose-arrival notice came on 3/20, the later date unsurprising as DJF were all about 2° BN and March was running about -6 thru that date. This season Dec was about average, Jan +5, Feb +1.4 and March to date +6.5.

My 57.8" to date is 16.1" BN, 78% of average, and unless the late week storm turns colder, we'll be close to 2' BN before expecting any more.

57058 for NYC metro was much AN: NYC Oak Ridge Reservoir (35 miles NW from NYC) DEC 8.7 14.0 JAN 9.2 6.9 FEB 10.7 25.5 Cold storm of 16-17: 7.9" NYC, 19.0" Oak R MAR 15.9 42.0 Paste bomb 20-21: 11.8" NYC, 28.0" Oak R (Pastie on the 14th: 4.1 and 13.0 respectively) APR 0.2 4.5 TOT 44.7 92.9 % Avg 155% 215% 3rd of 63 Rank 27th of 151 (and easily tops for the futile '50s; only 55-56 had more than half as much.) Had some family drama resulting from the equinoctial storm, but that's another story.

Good move. NW Cumberland is radically different from the PWM area. Numbers for Meh-bruary 2020 Avg max 30.4 +1.3 Mildest: 49 on the 24h/. Coldest max: 14 in the snow on the 18th Avg min: 7.5 +1.5 Coldest: -28 on the 15th, 2nd coldest Feb morning here. Mildest min: 27 on the 25th-26th Avg temp: 19.0 +1.4 Precip: 3.26" +0.19" Biggest day: 1.42" of "stuff" on the 27th. Snowfall: 17.9" -5.1" Biggest storm: 5.5" on 18-19. Avg snowpack: 16.3" -3.2" Peaked at 21" on the 19th. Not terrible but nothing memorable except perhaps that -28, though it was fake cold.

Considering the minimum, quite a nice day here with full sun, no wind and temps leaping upward. 3 mornings at -20 or colder this year, about average (78 such minima in 22 years.)

Another subzero morning, probably another 40+ diurnal range. Yesterday was 23/-24.

I've seen 2 such >22" events in 22 winters here, 12/03 and 2/09, and have to go back to 1984 (in Fort Kent) to find another one. Unless you're at Stowe or Jay Peak, or in prime LES country, that kind of dump isn't coming every winter.

"Relatively" being the operative term, as 22.4" (Philly's 4th biggest) isn't too shabby.

Full whiff up here from Jan '16. My 1st (of 3 lifetime) thundersnow came 12/24/1966. I learned 2 things that day as I was out hunting in NNJ - first, that 345 KV powerlines are hot (temp-wise) as I could hear flakes "popping" as I walked the edge of the R-O-W. 2nd one took 2 booms to convince me, as #1 merely confused - "It can't thunder during snow, can it?" After the 2nd and louder one my thought was "This is going to be something special." By then we had SN+ and 4-5" new, and the storm finished about 15".

Lots of sled traffic this weekend on the club trail thru our woodlot. 16" a the stake so a bit thin for good grooming. Snowshoeing with our Dudley Lab was excellent - at least something good came from the sleet fest 10 days ago.

Only 45° here, -28 to 17 (after Friday's 30/-13. Afternoon high was 10.) GYX noted that Jackman had -41 yesterday morning and might reach 30 today.

Low was -28, only 1° from my coldest Feb morning here. That came in 2003, the winter that killed my peach tree. Planted in late May 1998, that Reliance peach would grow vigorously in summer then die back to about 2' tall each winter. Then 01-02 didn't get colder than -12, there was no dieback, and the tree produced 100+ luscious tennis-ball-sized fruit. Jan-Feb-Mar 2003 reached -20 or colder 12 times, bottoming out with that -29 in Feb, and it was lights out. A weak sprout came from below the graft, thus useless, but it died in July anyway.

Touched -25 or a bit colder here. Another 40+ diurnal range today. Saw -32 at PQI, guessing Big Black/Estcourt Station under -35.

Lowery day for sure. Something's in the air here in AUG - fog, dz, frdz, can't tell (could go outside, I suppose.) A number of stations reporting precip outside of the areas of radar returns; maybe it's originating too low to give a return.