tamarack

Was forest management (especially fuel management or lack of same), considered by this study as a possible contributing factor for the massive increase in burn area? Perhaps it's not a major factor, but I hope it was part of the data that was used. (Would read the link but I'm headed home.)

However, on 9/30/91 locations from PQI and points north recorded 2-5". Ironic, because 5 years earlier (9/30/86) brought the largest convective-caused blowdown I've seen in my 46 years in Maine, 600 acres in T16R6 and T16R5, ending by tossing spruce into the NW end of Square Lake. (The Telos blowdown in October of either 1979 or 1980 was 3,000 acres of flattened spruce that from the air looked like an August oat field squashed by a thunderstorm. However, that was a synoptic system, SE gale.) sadly no older folks mentioned the desert dry of '65 Driest year on record for 6 states - DE, PA, NJ, CT, RI, MA. Skipped NY because of a drier year in the less wet western counties, but NYC's 26.09" in 1965 is nearly 7" less than their #2 driest, which was the year before. 1963 comes in at 4th driest but only a 4" RA in early November kept them from the #2 slot. And 1966 was running only 0.7" less dry than '65 thru August. ('66 remains NYC's driest met summer and is 2nd only to 2010 for hottest.) Then 9/21/66 recorded 5.54" and the drought was broken, though only the following months' being near/above norms confirmed the end. Wx trivia: Some locales in western VA got more RA in 5 hours from Camille's remnants than NYC had for all of 1965.

Had 15.8" in Gardiner, 3rd biggest of my 13 winters there. #1 came 11 week earlier, 17.5" on Dec 20-21. My top 5/top 10 entries that come from my Gardiner time don't involve snow. (Other than its contribution to the 1987 flood)

Not just the southern (assuming that means MA and perhaps SNE) but NNE as well. Farmington co-op reached 40" depth on Jan. 13 despite whiffing on the blizz. Then 3 torch-deluges (totaled 4" RA at temps 47-53) crushed the pack down to 8", by far the co-op's greatest January loss of snowpack. Feb. snows brought the depth to 21" before late month thaws pushed it back to 7", then a cold snowy week-plus in March grew the pack to 23". Two weeks later it was gone, just traces, and the 20" of April snow lasted but a day or two. 11/23/89 4" of snow at my parents house in Bayside. I drove to my friends house in Dix Hills for Thanksgiving dinner and right into the storm. Near zero visibility and heavy snow. My car nearly went off the road. Only flurries that day south of Augusta, though I tagged a deer that morning. Much preferred the thunderblizzard two days earlier, which ushered in nearly 6 weeks of continuous BN temps with several 10-11" snowfalls.. Extremely late snowfall in May of 1996. Snow on 5/12/96 in New York State and Vermont. Co-worker living at 1200' in Frenchville had 36 hours of continuous snowfall that weekend, top depth reaching 12". 30 miles SE and almost 600' lower, CAR recorded 5.7".

While some grass was showing then, I'd guess the "green" was leftovers from autumn, not spring green-up. Probably lots of piles still around as you drove by. Farmington co-op, located along Rt 4/27 about 1.5 miles north of town center, had 7" depth on 4/17 and only a trace on the 18th, despite that day's 37/36 temp and only 0.25" RA. To me, that's far too little RA/warmth to eat 7" of snow, even ripe 2:1 stuff. At my pack-holding location, 4/17 had 15" (at my 9 PM obs time - don't know when the co-op measures) and then decreased 2-3" per day to reach "trace" on 4/23. Had 3" the evening before.

That mid-April event dropped 5" snow at my place and 5" cold rain. Hope I never see another such pair of 5s. Sugarloaf summit probably got 4-5 feet, maybe more. Brought the month up to 37.2", and the 36.1" at the Farmington co-op was 12" above its next snowiest April since 1893. My #2 April here is 15.6" in 2011, and even my Fort Kent records top out at 29" in 1982.

April and May were nice, but JFM had way BN sun, 140% of avg precip and 60% snowfall - no way to run a NNE winter. Were you around to see Olympia snow woman in Bethel? Only on TV.

Maine's #1 must be 2010, the winter eaten by the New Year's retro-bomb. #2 might be the 1998 super Nino. 2012 obliterated some daily records and featured the 3 warmest March maxima in Farmington's 125-year POR. However, 2010 "wins" because those months had almost no BN temps at all, until the 2nd week of May when all our apple blossoms got freeze-killed, along with ash, birch and some maple shoots.

The above guess was way conservative - found 1.18" in the gauge that evening for a 2.23" total. Merely October doing its thing - month total now 6.19", a half inch above the average and maybe another inch to add. Average temp now 1.5° BN but sliding up toward normal.

Some NNJ memories triggered by 4,5,6: 4. Our scout troop (I was asst. scoutmaster) got caught at Allamuchy Scout Reservation that Sunday morning, and we had an interesting (but safe) 35 mile drive home. My '62 Beetle had no problem at all. 5. Had a high of about 4° that day with a stiff breeze. We were framing a new house, usually a well-warming exercise, but we were hard put to keep hands and feet fully operational. (Not as uncomfortable as 5 years earlier, 12/31/62, when the same 4° max was accompanied by gusts well into the 60s - speed estimated, but backed up by all the damage.) 6. 18" at low teens overnight, starting to taper off as we headed into the woods for the deer season opener. My dad dropped a nice little buck a couple hundred yards from the house while my friend and I saw nothing while slogging a mile or so thru the powder. Dad gave me a knife and showed me how to field dress a deer - came in handy 8 years later when I took my 1st deer, with no one else nearby.

Dumped 1.05" at 6:30 when I left for Orono, guessing another 1/2" after. Caught up to the heavy RA (and heavy traffic) about 10 miles south of BGR - a rain/spray white-out at times.

Over 20 years since I took that route, but IIRC the sign at the pass read 2,855'. With Alex to the north reporting snowline about 3k, I'm not surprised the Kanc had none.

Welcome to the board. I lurked for a year or more before joining, back in the Eastern days. Having spent Thanksgiving week in the Olympia area in both 1995 and '96, my impression for RA there was "some every day" - the November joke is that it only rains once that month, lasting 1st to 30th. However, in those 2 weeks there were only 2 all-day rains, and w/o a gauge I'd estimate neither reached 2". IIRC, Seattle averages a bit under 40"/year and Olympia probably isn't much different, with Port Angeles (closer to Olympics' rain shadow) about 10" less. Without checking stats, I'd guess your current area has big rain events - 3"/4"+ in 24 hours - more often than the communities on the inner part of Puget Sound.

Not New England, but some from my former life in NNJ - chronological, not prioritized: Nov. 1950 Apps Gale - my 1st wx memory. Watched trees thrashing until tops began falling, at which point dad thought it wise to go inside. Jan. 1953 Ice Storm - 45 years (to the day) prior to #1, above. 6 days w/o power, probably piqued my interest both in wx and trees. March 1956 - 24" dump, my first big snowstorm. Feb. 1961 - 24" or more atop a 25"+ pack, greatest depth in NJ records. NYC's strongest Feb wind. New Year's Eve 1962 - Winds gusting probably to 70 (uprooted huge bare-limbed oaks) with temp 5/-8, vies with 11/50 for strongest winds I've seen. Backside winds from the storm that ate BGR. Jan. 1966 - Baltimore blizzard, 15-18" pow at mid teens, winds gusting 50s, some side streets remained impassible a week later. Aug. 1971 - PRE plus TS Doria, 8.9" RA in about 20 hours. Top winds about same as Hazel, Bob (gusts approaching 60)

I think that's the trail under the summit lift - assuming they still have the same general configuration. The then-named Mountain Chair climbed up to about 3,000' (in 15 minutes - excruciating on a bitter day) and then one poled across nearly level ground to climb aboard the summit chair. Back in 71-72, that upper lift line trail was called Scotch Mist, keeping with the area's Highland theme, and it was not only narrow and bony, but had all those steel obstacles down the middle. No thanks! During the '71 ski week I went to the summit about 3 times after the 8" Tuesday snowfall, and it didn't look like more than a handful of tracks had been made by Saturday early (GE used to offer an hour of free skiing 7:30-8:30 for "conditions check.) The trail under the Mountain Chair had poles down the middle too (duh!) but was about 3X as wide and the moguls were all snow, not thinly covered boulders. The day after the snow it was near zero all day with winds gusting to 50 and the sun a dim spot through the cornmeal flurries. I wouldn't even try the slo-mo Mountain Chair that day, especially after getting a touch of frostbite just walking from car to lodge. Fortunately there was a 2,500' lift that gained about 500' elevation in 5 minutes, and I rode that one almost to closing time. After about 2:30 I'd get to the top and say "Last run - can't stand the ride." Then I'd make lots of turns and be warmed up and do it again. I don't think there were ever a dozen skiers on that hill all day, and by late afternoon maybe just one.

Learned to ski parallel there during a ski-week almost 50 years ago. (Incredibly inexpensive - entire ski-weeks were just $45 and they cut that in half for that January!) Went back for a short weekend a year later and still regret not talking Upper FIS. I was skiing as good as I ever achieved, perhaps low-end intermediate, conditions were good, the trail is wide and was deserted. Did ski the much narrower black diamond (name forgotten) to the left of the main lift line - used to be The Cliff - and had a great run.

It's all good - thanks.

Thanks for your work in setting up this fun site once again. Will we need new usernames and passwords, or will the ones from last year still work?

The friend who introduced me to boletus Betula had a 2-inch-thick book on mushroom ID, stating which were poisonous, which were good eating, and a lot which were labeled "not poisonous" - probably the ones like shelf mushrooms that are hard as wood. His tongue-in-cheek method of testing for poison was "Take a bite and wait 20 minutes. If you start feeling dizzy don't eat any more." (Some of the most deadly ones don't show symptoms until 4-6 hours after consumption, and have no antidote.)

It's the season for birch boletes - stocky 'shrooms, a reddish cap with pores rather than gills, and a stout stem. Likes birches and aspens, and quite tasty. Its relative boletus edulis is said to be even better but I've never found one. They live in the spruce-fir woods. Puffballs are pretty good as well if you catch them early. One bit of brownish interior makes them trash.

Ice storm: December 2008. About an inch and a half of ice at 31F. Amazing event. Most people posting on here were on the forums for this one so they've seen all the pics and such even if they didn't directly experience it. Can't match January 1998 up in NNE but basically no ice storm can. Comparing just worst-to-worst, they may have been close (though the "Godzilla effect" high tension towers in Quebec are indeed unmatched.) But 1998 tore things apart from Montreal to Machias - can't recall another ice storm that covered nearly that much area.

Probably peaked about 10' above MHW, though I've not read anything official. That SSE wind was trying to push all of Penobscot Bay up the river. Of the 200 or so cars flooded (and totaled - BGR temp dropped from 57 to 1 that afternoon/eve), only a single car had been occupied. The woman climbed onto the roof (BDN had a dramatic pic) and a fellow swam out and made the rescue. Just like Hollywood, they got married about 6 months later. (AKAIK, they were strangers at the time of the flood.) We'd had a lesser thaw (43F, 0.20" RA) just 6 days earlier which froze up many culverts, so the ice holes on roads were challenging. Heard news that one in Baker Brook, NB, about 7 miles from Ft. Kent, was deep enough to snare a log truck. That 1st year in FK had as much wx drama as any 2 other years: 1/1: Moved to FK. 1/12: -41, welcome to the St. John Valley. (9th-13th avg minima -34) 2/2: Groundhog gale. 5/7: 1.5" snow in 45 minutes as I tilled the garden. 8/10: 6" RA from the remains of Belle, nearly washed away neighbor's house, ruins our garden. Backyard looked like river bottom stones/gravel. 11/14: (not exactly weather, but snow OG helped) 1st Maine deer. Lo-o-o-ng drag 12/26-30: 36" in 2 storms, 2nd of which accompanied the last 370 miles driving home from family Christmas in NJ. CAR going from +1C to -8C in one hour I impressive on the '76 cold front. My 5-hr drop from +7C to -21C blows away any other CF of my experience.

lol. Feb heat wave (CAR +14.7 for the month) St. John and Allagash ice runs. My top 5 (with then-current residence): Jan 1998 ice storm (Gardiner) April 1987 Kennebec flood (Gardiner) April 1982 blizzard (Fort Kent) Bob (Gardiner) Feb. 2, 1976 SE gale (Fort Kent) Temp 44 to -6 in 5 hr, CAR 957 mb, BGR 200 cars drowned as Penobscot estuary rises 15 feet in 15 minutes, Stonington gust 110+. Honorable mentions (both New Sharon): Dec 6-7, 2003 (24" blizz), Pi Day 2017 (2nd strongest blizz after 4/82)

Perhaps get a firm ID on the bugs, then look for the appropriate variety of BT, the biological insecticide which has been adapted for numerous insect families, each working only on that family (BT for Diptera [flies and mosquitos], as an example, won't harm bees.)

The leaves in your pic (right side) look a bit wider than cherry leaves around here, but the bark is cherry - no other tree in the area has that blocky black skin. If you can reach a twig, a scrape of the bark offers that "bitter almond" aroma diagnostic for the genus, which includes chokecherry (more a bush than tree) and pincherry, also called fire cherry as it's often on of the first trees after fire or clearcut. It grows about as large as striped maple though it cannot tolerate shade.