tamarack

GPS is great, but its use should be enhanced by another 3-letter term: M A P

7 AM temps listed on GYX's site showed LEW at 25, next coolest were PWM and FVE at 31. Lewiston: The state's new cold pole. About 10° cooler than my frost-pocket location.

Great link. Noted that Chimney Pond had taken the Maine depth record with 94" in Feb. 2017. Before, I'd not seen anything above Farmington's 84" in Feb. 1969. Fitting that the state record should be near Katahdin at about 3,000' instead of at 420' next to Route 27. Last evening's temp had the biggest pre-CF-mixing boost I can recall - was 26-27 at 6:30 and a windy 39 by 9, where it stayed for nearly 2 hr before starting to slide down back toward this morning's mid-upper 20s.

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.)

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".)

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.

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."

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.

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.

Climo asserted itself last year (Farmington averages 90", LEW closer to 70") but previous years with KevinMA's table have seen your snowfall essentially the same as mine - 0.4" difference. Might be returning to the patterns before 18-19?

Storm total 2.5" from 0.53" LE (some of the 0.58" noted in previous post was rain-soak) with trees looking quite nice until the wind picked up. Only 0.02" came from the 0.4" of light snow falling 7-11 AM. At the first good snow-dislodging gust it sounded like a herd of giant squirrels were pitter-pattering on our roof, as the snow was a bit crusted so the stuff hit the roof in chunks.

2" overnight after a slushy tenth before 9 PM, with 0.25" total precip by then. Haven't melted the rain/snow bucket but the 2" on the board held 0.58". Trees nicely frosted for the grandkids from SNJ. Still some light snow, probably will continue most of he morning, might pick up another tenth or two. Several reports of thunder in the area, but not here so November remains my only month here without it. Sw a report from GYX of 8" in Carrabassett Valley.

Frosty mid 20s this morning, 2" of armor plate merely softened yesterday and got harder than ever overnight.

Except when real cold arrives, liquids and produce might want to come inside quickly lest they suffer hypothermia.

The cold surely relaxed after that amazing 40 days (from 11/22 thru 12/31 [7 AM obs times] averaged -15.0 at Farmington), but at my (then) home in Gardiner the warm-up still allowed for 51.5" of Jan-Feb snow (30% above avg) and a 5" surprise at the end of March. At least it wasn't like the current event, RA at 33 with trace ZR at home and perhaps 0.15" accretion at 800' five miles to my south on Mile Hill.

Love this image. Among other things, it really shows well the Jersey pine barrens. Cloudy with a raw wind in Augusta while at 10 AM PWM was reporting light rain and 31 - lovely. Yesterday's 29/0 made it 2 zero-or-below mornings earlier than getting even one in any of my other 46 Novembers in Maine. And while I have no doubts about Island Pond's low of -11, that 39° max seems a bit high. I had full sun all day yesterday, and should not have been 10° cooler.

Stayed a couple degrees above zero here - wind was light but still moving at 10 last night, so less time after the inversion sets up. Walking in the woods yesterday was explosively noisy as the Friday "thaw" followed by an 8F low produced a solid crust, and the leaves were nice and crunchy underneath. Every deer within a half mile could probably hear me.

Almost exactly the same temps here (had 19/6), though my max-min instrument is far too small to have tenths discernable. That mean of 12.5 is 22° BN, while last year's T-Day was 11/-3 for 27° BN. Zero or a bit cooler this morning before the clouds arrived.

Storm total was 4.0" with the 0.8" of afternoon fluff. Total LE was 0.54" with my best estimate that 0.46" was frozen, the rest ZR as the temp never went above 28 during the event. Morning low at home was about 8F and with winds about 15G25 that's WCI near -10. If the winds quit and clouds delay, will make a run at zero tonight. Had a low of 2F on the 15th last year, and the -3 a week later on T-Day is my earliest at zero or below.

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.

Freezing drizzle and upper 20s in Augusta at present. After 6 hours of (very) occasional mood flakes yesterday, steady S- began about 2 PM though it began to accumulate an hour later. Measured 2.7" with 0.25" LE at 9 PM, another 0.5" of rimey snow/sleet with a thin zr cap at 7 this morning, total 3.2" with 0.42" LE, perhaps 0.02" of that as non-frozen. At 6:30 saw that temps were teens up north, 20s/30s elsewhere except EPO, which was reporting 55.

Reminds me of Feb. 2017 when some guy from RI noted the 76" depth report from Andover, Maine and drove up there expecting to find giant snowbanks along the roads. He also got onto a back road (East B Hill Road) where his GPS didn't work and his gas gauge was low and he had no idea where the road would take him. He then posted about "fake news" and vilified all things Maine, not realizing that the plow operators tend to push the snow a little farther than they do in RI. (Also not realizing that an old fashioned paper map can be your friend.)