tamarack

IIRC, Rainier/Paradise's tallest pack was something like 376". Assuming that bus is 11-12' high, the wall in the pic must be in the 500" range. (Of course, some of that may be stuff thrown up as the road was cleared, but still...) And I'm surprised that it opens as early as April. When my brother and family, then stationed in Germany, tried to access one of Norway's fjord towns (Flam or Geiranger) from inland one June about 30 years ago, they were unsuccessful because the roads at 3000-4000' elevation had not yet been cleared.

Japanese Alps are in the running for snowiest place on Earth. One long LES as Siberian cold crosses the Sea of Japan then gets wrung out orographically. (Plus synoptic storms full of west Pac water.)

Saw the same for Rangeley - not quite in line with the AFD from GYX.

Should calm the ticks - picked up one this morning while walking the dog.

18th. 12" at the Farmington co-op, only 2" at Ft. Kent even though it snowed all day. Sat in the woods west of Allagash Village for almost 2 hours that morning, then walked out and found that 3 deer had walked so close to my parked pickup that, had I waited there I could've bayonetted one.

Anyone in New England expecting wire-to-wire should get a job at Paradise on Rainier, where the average year sees over 50 feet of snow and only one season (14-15) came in with less than 400".

July 2-4, 1966 at NYC - 100, 103, 98. Until 2010 came in a bit hotter, met summer 1966 was both hottest and driest on record there. After the record shatteringly dry 1965 - more than 6" less than 2nd driest year - 1966 was on track to challenge for #1, only 0.72" wetter thru August. Then a 5-year drought essentially ended on a single day (5.54" on 9/21) though we didn't realize it at the time.

Excellent snowpack winter here, as latitude really did its thing in March. (And that month's 30-35" persisted nicely thanks to record cold - Farmington's coldest March in its 125 year records.)

I'm in the jack stripe, so that can't be right. 12z GFS op brings Tuesday's LP right over my head, for a torch-deluge. Track will likely wobble E-W a couple degrees longitude about every 12 hours from now thru zero hour.

60-61: 54.7" 66-67: 51.5" In the 3 big storms (12/11-12, 1/19-20, 2/3-4) EWR totaled 56.7" while NYC got 42.5". Across the river at EWR they did better: 72.6" in 60-61 and 57.3" in 66-67.

Some of those critters are nocturnal, and they all tend to hide when giants are walking about.

We lived in the Jersey Highlands in the town of Kinnelon (named for Albert Kinney, whose Sweet Caporal cigarettes made him a fortune during the latter decades of the 19th century.) Our place was at about 700' elevation, at Lat. 40.9766, Lon. 74.3702. Below are the logs of 60-61 and 66-67 for our home (based on memory) and for Oak Ridge Reservoir (co-op records), about 9 miles west and 150' higher elev. 1960-61 Home Oak Ridge 12/11-12 18.0 14.0 Temps low-mid teens, nice for NJ deer season opener. Giants-'Skins in DC trying to play on 8" powder. briefly lost fumble in snow piles. 12/17 2.0 2.0 12/20-21 2.0 3.0 12/29-30 3.0 4.0 1/1 0.0 1.0 1/16-17 6.0 5.0 0.3" ZR Sunday afternoon, 6" on top that night. Very surprised that school wasn't closed Monday. They knew something? 1/19-20 20.0 24.0 The JFK inaugural storm. 1st time I saw accumulating snow at temps below 10°. 1/24 1.0 2.0 1/27 4.0 0.0 Fringed by major storm to east. I think co-op missed reporting, as sites all around all had 2-4". 2/3-4 24.0 27.0 My 2' may be conservative, given 50 mph gusts. Co-op reported 50" pack on 2/5 and site 10 mi. NW 52", probably near 45" at home. NYC sub-32 1/19-2/3. 2/13 1.0 0.0 2/16 1.0 2.0 3/1-2 1.5 1.5 3/9 1.0 1.5 3/14 1.0 1.0 3/23 6.0 12.0 Surprised by paste bomb, most fell 8A-noon, had to walk the 5 miles from school. Co-op probably didn't measure until its 7A obs time on 3/24, #settle/melt. 4/1 1.0 1.0 4/10 2.0 2.0 4/13-14 4.0 4.0 SN+ to rain overnight. Total 104.5 101.0 With the apparent missed obs on 1/27, co-op would be about the same. 1966-67 12/14 7.0 7.0 Fluffy and moist, great for snowmen 12/21 7.0 6.0 12/24-25 15.0 13.0 Thundersnow, during SN+ mid-aft 24th. 12/29 2.0 1.0 1/6 1.0 1.0 1/28-29 1.0 2.5 2/3 1.0 1.5 2/6 4.0 3.5 SN+ 5-9A with plunging temps. Then 16-18 hours until the big dog. 2/7 15.0 11.0 Snow at 6°, would not pack under dad's 4000 lb Pontiac "boat", so we couldn't push it up the hill from driveway. Probably tallest pack of winter @ 18" +/- 2/10 1.0 1.0 2/18 1.5 1.0 2/21-22 3.0 4.0 2/23-24 5.0 5.5 2/28 1.5 0.5 3/5 3.0 3.0 3/6-7 5.0 5.0 SN to ZR, 0.2"-0.3" accretion (rained too hard to accrete.) Big snow BOS. 3/15-16 7.0 8.0 Any memory of this storm was obscured by the next 2 plus record cold. 3/17 6.0 4.5 1-3" clipper grew muscles. Temp fell from 13 to 8 during 5 hours when most snow fell. Barely got to 10° on 3/18, low of -3 (NYC 8) on 19th. 3/23 10.0 9.5 Started just after midnight, snowed thru the day. Even NYC got 9.8". 4/24 1.5 2.0 Back end of cold coastal. 4/27 3.0 0.0 I think the co-op missed this one, too, as it fell 2-7A and other nearby sites had 1-3". Total 100.5 90.5 I may have been too generous on the Christmas Eve and Feb. 7 storms, both windblown powder.

We use borax in the laundry (whites only), and a 50-50 mix with granular sugar has dealt with the carpenter ants that try to eat our cabin. The critters apparently can tell that the sugar is worth carting back to the nest but can't differentiate it from the borax, which wipes out the home base. I'd recommend putting whatever is used in places where pets/kids can't get them. When I placed 4-5 this summer, one was on the front porch with a board set about 1/2" above the mix (was in a margarine container lid) and we found a dead mouse lying right on the stuff a few days later. Still slightly (about 1") BN for precip on the year, despite 5.5" over the past 2 weeks. The Friday and Tuesday storms should bring us up to par.

Fastest growth for most tree species occurs at the base of the live crown (which is a moving target, as lower branches get shaded out and die.) 16" is upper end for fir, though I've seen a couple (now long dead) that were over 24". Depending on how daring you are, a rope or two tied 20' up that fir and anchored solidly to trees opposite that pole, plus a double back cut and wedging, could probably get that thing safely on the ground. It's only "probably" because potential internal defect could be an issue. Years back, I had a 75' tall white ash double-backed and wedged, but hidden defect compromised the hinge on the side away from the tree's lean and the hinge broke sideways, the tree falling 90° from my intended direction and lodging in its neighbor.

That late Feb mess in 2010, the most unpleasant 10" snowfall I ever hope to see, was 5° from a repeat of what had happened 41 years earlier on the exact same dates. Though 05-06 and 15-16 were worse by the numbers, 09-10 was by far the most frustrating. After the three total whiffs on major KUs, that slopfest while points south and west were getting buried was like being taunted by the wx. L OL out of many similar setups that have been good for you all. You and Tamarack need to hold each other and talk out your fears with a Will as a therapist. Any PTSD up here has been fostered by all the SNE glee at how wonderful 02-03 was That and 1960-61 were the two greatest winters of a very snowy 60s decade. I would take 1966-67 based on longevity- it was amazing! I also like the contrast of a very hot/dry 1966 summer followed by that kind of snowy and cold winter lol. We had over 100" in 60-61, and IMO that winter was tops in by NNJ days. 66-67 had more snowstorms, the thundersnow, the late March record cold, but no events greater than 15" and none that produced lasting snow cover. 60-61 had storms of 18", 20", and 24" (that last a conservative guess on NYC's windiest Feb day), extended pack-holding cold, the tallest pack in NJ since reliable records began (it's not even close), plus a 12" pastey surprise in late March. It's the difference between A+ and A++.

66-67 produced about 100" at my NNJ home, a bit over 30" each for Dec, Feb, Mar surrounding a 2" Jan, then 4.5" in late April, including 3" on 4/27. The 15" on 12/24 was especially noteworthy for me - did not know thundersnow was even possible before hearing it loud and clear as I walked out of the woods from a small game hunt.

Balsam fir is a boreal species, though its current northerly limit is well south of black spruce. Fir is near the southerly edge of its range in central New England, found mainly at elevation there, but in the northerly portions of Maine and extreme northern VT/NH it grows at all elevations up to tree line. Any species near the edges of its range will be more vulnerable to insects, diseases, drought stress (south and west edges), frost damage, and general cold that prevents growth of viable seeds (northerly edges.) I've seen fir along I-84 in the higher ground some 20-30 miles NE form Scranton, PA, but those few are outliers. By the time one gets south of Exit 2 of the Maine Turnpike, fir has dropped out of the picture, at least as seen from the highway. Fir on my lot does much better than that on the midcoast tracts managed by our agency, where it tends to die out by age 50, but nowhere near as well as in NW Maine - growth rates aren't all that much different (always subject to site fertility and competing species) but average lifespans are quite different. In reading discussions about climate change and forest composition, I think that some forest predictions ("by the year 2100, Maine will look like today's North Carolina") are off base because trees are generally pretty tough, but that the real changes in vegetation will be caused by insects and diseases invading from southerly climes, rather than directly from warmer temps, or even drought. (Though both could increase stress and make trees more vulnerable to those invading attackers.)

Temp had dropped to mid-upper 20s by 8 last evening, then barely moved overnight, thanks mainly to clouds. Still cold enough to put 5/16" ice on the soon-to-be-dumped washtub. Mitch's fir has nearly 60 rings, about all one can expect from that species until one is in northern Maine. The fill probably shortened its life by 10 years or less, given the rot pockets.

Only 67.8" at my place in 02-03, about the same degree of ratter as LEW given my 90" avg. Had a nice 7" storm in mid-Nov and cold wx that kept the ground white from then until early April, 13.8" dump in early Jan, but the rest was suppression city.

Do you travel far to find your spot? (I can walk out from the front porch, though I drive down the road a bit so the dog won't follow.) Saturday upcoming and next Monday for me - hoping for decent wx. Have not put on the orange yet. Strong winds, but nothing approaching advisory level in our sheltered locale. Saw some pink clouds and a bit of blue on the horizon at sunset. Had 0.90" as of 7:30 AM, guessing 3-4 tenths since.

Brief heavy downpour about 4:25 and now the winds are picking up, though nothing beyond the 20s yet. Looked at radar about 3:30 and decided the deer can wait for another day to fool me.

Had 1.1" as of 7:30 this morning, down to light rain now, Bit over 4" since 10/22, wet but nothing alarming.

For SNE and some CNE spots. We'll not finish within a foot of 2005, Maine's wettest year.

Christmas was warm and the day before was even warmer in 2015. NYC on 12/24 recorded 72/63 (2.5 CDD!), which was something like 32° AN, probably their greatest plus departure since records began there in 1869. Minimum was 22° higher than the normal max.

All of the evergreens. Taking a stab - as all here know, oaks hold their dead leaves to a greater extent than any other deciduous tree genus. My now, most everything else up here is bare. I'll offer my thoughts on vulnerability to wind damage, summer and winter, with some shoulder season comments. It must first be noted that if gusts get over 60, nothing among tall trees in this region is invulnerable. At very high wind speeds, the trees left standing probably survived because their position on the landscape and amid other trees shielded them from the strongest winds. Most vulnerable - summer --White pine - It's tall, has most of its sail area high up, and has brittle wood. Rooting is deeper than most other conifers, but subject to both breakage and uprooting. --Aspens, especially quaking aspen, which is more rot-prone than bigtooth. These trees are shaped like a Tootsie Roll pop, thus huge leverage against the base, wood is weaker than pine, rooting is shallow, and they are short lived and defect prone. A mid-May gale, when aspen here is further leafed out than the other deciduous critters, is tough on the species. --Balsam fir - Probably has the most shallow rooting of any tree native to the region, wood is a bit stronger than pine but internal defect just above ground makes for breakage. --Tall non-natives - In particular, black locust tips easily, a surprise because its above ground wood is very strong. Roots apparently are weaker and less extensive, and their form resembles that of aspen. Eastern cottonwood has weak wood and is one of the East's tallest trees. Least vulnerable - summer --Beech (I've rarely seen them uprooted, can't recall seeing wind breakage), oaks, sugar maple, yellow and black birch --Cedar, surprisingly - Eastern redcedar is well rooted, brittle but strong, and its usual open-grown habitat means it's used to wind. Northern white cedar is shallow rooted, often grows in swamps, has fairly weak wood, but it's usually overtopped by other trees and thus somewhat protected and it has much taper, meaning more wood at the base relative to its height. In a major downburst, it tips along with all the rest. Most vulnerable - winter --Here I'd rank fir at the top, as it almost never projects way above the other trees as does white pine. It's foliage is dense (excellent for deer winter cover; too bad it lives such a short time) and the weak and often defective wood makes fir first in flattening. --White pine - All its summer vulnerability remains in play. --Spruces/hemlock - Stronger (especially hemlock) than fir or white pine, somewhat better rooted than fir/cedar/aspen, but dense foliage. Where these species occur on higher ground amid hardwoods, winter is a challenge. --Leafy oaks amid the sticks become more vulnerable this time of year, but not so much as the listed conifers. Least vulnerable - winter --Most hardwoods other than aspen, and perhaps black locust. This should be taken with caution when winds are very strong. The NW gales of 12/31/1962 toppled numerous hardwoods, including oaks; some fully de-leafed large white oaks (deeper rooting than the reds) were ripped out of semi-frozen ground in that event. (Only 1-2" snow OG, and my high temp on the 31st was 5°, in the evening as the winds slowly began to lessen, and the reading had been below 10 and down as far as -8 since sunrise on 12/30.) YMMV