tamarack

Last time NYC had a sub-40 temp in May was 1978. Last time they had 34° as late as 5/9 was...never, at least not since Central Park began keeping records in 1869. Still flakes in the air (and not just from the trees dumping) but accum is done unless we get a squall later. WCI's about 20 (teens in Aroostook) - happy May!

Cool! IMO, 6"+ icicles on May 9 is more rare that 6" of snow in May. Finished with 3.2", with the 1.2" after 7 AM only 0.07" LE - 17:1 snow in May. If the Farmington co-op git as much as here, it would be their biggest May snowfall in 57 years and 4th biggest ever measured, POR 127 years. If the changeover to snow had occurred at 10 PM instead of 2-3 AM, we'd probably have had closer to 5", but still the biggest May snowfall I've seen.

Back to S- with small flakes, another 1" of fluff since 7 for 3" total, more than any May snow in my 10 years in Fort Kent. (Though had I still been there in 1996, my 970' location would've had 10+ on Mother's Day weekend.)

2.0" of 9:1 snow at 7 AM (after 0.15" of RA/mix that didn't stay on the board.) Nicest dendrites yet now drifting down, and temp just dropped a degree.

Stereotypes usually reflect at least a modicum of reality. The problem is that many folks then think the stereotype is the only reality, ignoring the wide diversity of philosophy among the above groups. Same is true when considering those advocating stricter gun control and pro-choice.

"Old Sam Peabody" (Sometimes more than one "Peabody") Good streaming movie. The green movement is pissed at Moore. Ironic Have not seen it (haven't entered the streaming world) but read a very critical review - on a forestry and forest products site, not an environmentalist one. The review took Moore to task for basing his economic critique of wind and solar on old technology, ignoring for instance that solar had become far more efficient and less costly since the examples he used. (From 2008 IIRC) Another point in the review is that Moore assumed no environmentalists considered the costs (dollars and carbon) of making/building wind turbines and solar panels when they (the enviros) pushed for more use. There were many other examples of that that reviewer considered as bad journalism - made it seem like Moore had made up his mind on these issues and then scratched around trying to find supportive examples without considering whether they were valid examples.

22" and 9+ pounds - that's a really fat fish! (Though the estimator equation - length*girth*girth divided by 800 - works out to 9.9 lb.) Many years ago (the year Lauri Rapala's lures became widely available in the US) I caught a non-skinny 22" largemouth that weighed 5 1/8 pounds from the nearby NNJ lake.

April numbers Mean: 37.75 2.3 BN, 1st BN month since Nov. Avg hi: 48.6 3.1 BN, Highest: 60 on 4/27 Avg lo: 26.9 1.5 BN, Lowest: 18 on 4.21, also 4 mornings at 19 Precip: 6.16" 1.67" AN Wettest day: 1.19" on 4/13. 4?2-3 had 1.94" Snow: 8.6" 3.3" AN Snowiest day: 4.8" on 4/9. The 4/9-10 storm was 8.5", 4th greatest April snow in our 22 years here. Pack: 21" on 2/19 was the deepest. Mean for deepest pack is 29"

We had a trace and upper 30s RA. The New Year's retro-bomb that ate winter was still wrecking the wx here.

First 40° diurnal range of spring yesterday, 59/19. Looks like that will be the April max. First 21 Aprils here all reached at least 64. Wood frogs quacking in good order and a few peepers last night.

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.

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.

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".

2" in the foothills. That season had no snows greater than 3.4" thru Feb 9, then 21" with some thunder on 10-11 plus 5 more storms for another 39" thru March 12.

I've read and heard from more reliable sources that arson is suspected in a number of the Australian wildfires. That doesn't change the fact that abnormally hot and dry weather (at a time when climo is already hot and dry) is making those fires far more catastrophic than they would be with normal weather, and far harsher to those trying to control the fires.

Hard to choose here in the foothills. Using calendar years (mostly), 2000-09 averaged 92.4" while 2010-19 had 91.6" with perhaps a bit to be added in the next 8 days, though not the 8" it would take to match 00-09. --00-09 and 10-19 each had 4 years with 100"+, though curiously the 10 seasons 99-00 thru 08-09 had only 3 while 09-10 thru 18-19 did it 6 times. Advantage 10-19. --My top 3 calendar years are 2007, 2008, and 2001 in that order. (Seasons: It's 07-08, 00-01 and 16-17 in that order.) Advantage 00-09. --My 2 largest snowfalls came 12/6-7/03 and 2/22-23/09. Of the top 10, 6 came 00-09, top 20 had 12 in 00-09. Advantage 00-09 --00-09 (actually 99-00 thru 08-09) had 2 ratters, 3 meh winters, 5 good ones including the two snowiest. 09-10 thru 18-19 had 3 ratters, one meh, and 6 good winters. Advantage 10-19. For extreme events, it's 00-09. For consistency, it's 10-19. For snowpack, 10-19 leads in days with 1" to 29" while 00-09 is ahead for 30"+ and for average of winter's deepest, 31" to 30". Call it a draw.

I think that 55 was across the river in Troy though ALB must have been similar, and Saratoga was in the same general range. Hudson and lower CT River valleys took the brunt. IMO, that storm's combo of snow, wind and cold is unmatched in records for the Northeast. Have you seen "Blizzard! The great storm of '88" by Judd Caplovich? Lots of info, maps drawn by Kocin, scads of old pics. Only Maine data I've found is for Gardiner, 6 miles south of Augusta, which recorded 8": of paste on a day with a low of 32 - they were too far east for the good stuff. ASH isn't all that far away and they got about 30".

Batted .500 on the March quartet, only a trace (and wind) from#1 and nada from #4, but 36.4" total from 2&3. We take - made for my 2nd snowiest March here, though 18" behind 2001. Of course, the might-have-beens were strong; going 4-for-4 might have eclipsed Feb. '69 for snowiest month in the foothills - needed about 30" more. The 2 March hits, the best 12/25 storm of my experience and the Aroostook cold either side of NYD - all great stuff. (Less fun was 2 January days in hospital after a serious A-fib event, though things have gone okay since.)

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.

That anecdote makes me recall a spill during my learn-to-parallel ski week at the old Glen Ellen back in 1971. It was my final run (also after 4 PM) on Thursday, on an intermediate trail named Black Watch. My goggles had been fogging completely in the cold (single digit max) so I would ski without them, stopping halfway down to let my eyes clear. On that run, as I went into the stop an edge caught and somehow I recovered but was then going even faster. tried again, same story and probably the fastest I've ever gone on skis. 3rd time was the "charm" - really caught the edge and went airborne. The mind races at times like that, and I had time to think in mid-air "glad it's near the end of my ski week before I wreck." Landed on my head (snow was soft) and did the eggbeater thing. One ski failed to release and my knee was painful but skiable. Surprisingly, the pain was gone the next morning.

After 16" on 3/22-23 and 19" eight days later, there was 48" at my stake on 3/31/2001, for the date taller even than any Fort Kent winters, by 2" over 1984. And a monster storm was progged for the next day and night - track shifted east and buried Newfoundland, big snow and gusts to 150 kph.

Kind of like my seeing catspaws on the windshield in late August at 1,000' elevation in Fort Kent. Not all that wintry, but slushy drops during that month are noteworthy.

Thanks. And I also thank you and Will for related follow-up comments. As one who has worked as a forester since 1976 I'm always interested in things related to my vocation.