tamarack

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.

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.

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.)

Woke up last Nov. 10 to see 2" on the ground. Did not see bare ground at the stake until April 21 - 162 consecutive days with 1"+, which is 20 days longer than any other such streak here. Not sure that whatever we get today/tonight will survive Sunday's 40s, but if the Tuesday event holds together it might be the start of another long run of white ground. (Unless it's stolen by a super-Grinch.)

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.

Wind had kicked up last evening, but the final showers didn't arrive until just before 6 this morning, nearly an hour after the lights went out. Temp dropped 3° in the 15 minutes before I headed to Augusta. As of my 6:15 obs for cocorahs we'd had 0.59" yesterday/today, doubt we got more than another tenth or so. Heavy stuff clipped N. Aroostook - Madawaska cocorahs reported 2.97" and New Sweden was next at 1.15"; no one else in Maine has reported over 1". No news on whether the home front is re-powered yet. Edit: Re-checked cocorahs and saw that Westmanland, like New Sweden a central Aroostook town, reported 1.24" and a couple 1" reports from eastern Washington County. All those sites were still raining at obs times.

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.