tamarack

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

Once the trees go dormant, so do most of our log jobs - until freeze-up. Contractors know to plan for maintaining their iron in November. (And again in spring - 2 mud seasons here)

October numbers at my place - averages are compared only to my location. Rumors of a mild month were overblown. The rolling average did pop up to +1.6 following the +17 warmth of the 10th, but by the 15th it had dropped into BN country and never slowed the descent. From 10/13 thru the end of the month, temps ran 6.4 BN with just one AN day (20th). Avg max: 49.3 5.9 BN and coolest avg max of 21 here by 1.1° Highest was 78 on both 9th and 10th. Coldest max was 33 on the snowy 27th. Avg. min 33.9 0.6 BN Coldest was 22 in the 27th pre-dawn, before the clouds thickened. Mildest min was 50 on the 10th. Mean was 41.6 3.3 BN and 2nd coolest October after 2002. Precip: 5.12" 0.60" BN (Oct is the wettest month here.) Biggest one day: 0.90" on the 2nd. Three separate storms totaled 2.92" during 24-29. The 1.5" on 27-28 is the 3rd largest October snow I've measured, 0.1" ahead of 2005 but way behind 2000 (6.3") and 2011 (4.5".) It's just my 6th measurable snow in 21 Octobers.

Hemlock has a hard time getting above 2,000' in NNE. Fir has lots of issues, and I think bark beetles are secondary pests on fir, attacking trees already weakened by other factors. That softwood stand in Mitch's yard looks crowded, with many trees probably with narrow crowns, thus slow growing and vulnerable. ((Added note: On white spruce, bark beetles can attack perfectly healthy trees, as is currently happening on the most NW-ly large tract that we manage.)

Needed to be in the North. While you were getting 40° RA in early Jan and I was listening to trees crashing down all around, Aroostook from HUL north had a 5-day snowstorm that dropped 18-27" of modest ratio snow (mainly 8-10 to 1) at temps mostly in the teens.

Maybe compare EPO to IND. (Western Indiana time zones are weird, as some counties in the NW and SW corners of the state have elected to join their brethren to the west.)

Yesterday made 10 in a row that failed to top 42. Avg max for those days 39.6 (11° BN), avg departure -7.7. Probably less than 24 hours of sunshine during the entire stretch. The 80 ft tall oak behind the house retains half its leaves. That's more foliage than the combined total of the other hundred or so trees visible from the yard.

After a dry (63% of avg) Sept and 1/2 avg for Oct thru the 22nd, we've had nearly 3" in the past week and Oct is at 90%. With GYX also talking 2-3" by Sat evening, the swamps (as always) will get filled. IMO, the DST/no DST discussion tends to pit the eastern part of the time zone against the western part - the east loses any after-work daylight, while the west has schoolkids waiting for the bus in pitch darkness due to 8 AM (or later) sunrise.

It was really VT-classic back in the stone age (1971) when I bought a half-price (offered during all of Jan) ski week at the old Glen Ellen - M-F lift tickets/lessons, couple of evening parties with ski movies, could even spend one of the 5 days at MRG, but I needed the lessons more than the adventure. Stayed at a nice clean $3/night sleeping bag place (named "The Bagatelle") in Waitsfield, skied top-to-bottom on Sat thanks to GE's free 1st hour ("Come check it out, then decide") and spent less than $100 for the week, including gas for the round trip from NNJ. The classic Vermonter running the lodgings was typical thrifty (or tightwad, take your choice) NNE-er; even the napkins came for a price - 3 for a penny.

Farther north in 2005, we didn't record a 4" storm until Feb (late Jan blizz was a 2" graze.) Of course, that first 4+ was a 21" dump with thunder, and we had 60" from 2/10 thru 3/12.

Highs for last 8 days here: 42, 42, 40, 41, 39, 38, 33, 37. That 33 is the snow day. (Obviously) Still missing Oct 1-6, while 7-28 is 3.7° BN. Never got lower than 22 despite several "Near 20, teens in the cold spots" forecasts, always spiked by cloud/wind.

1.40" precip thru 7 this morning. Last evening's heavier rain included 0.2" IP, also 2 flash-rumbles about 9:30. Winds probably gusted near 30 late, enough for some mild house creaks. Ground is still white, as temps never reached 35. After watching the game 3 marathon, I went to bed just before last night's scoring began, and missed all the fun.

P-type switched to -RA about 5, after 1.3" of 6:1 snow in just over 2 hours. The switch came as precip intensity decreased. Heard a rumble, but we think it was the plow truck out on the paved road. Still only light winds, not surprising in our somewhat sheltered lowland site.

Snow rate has gone from light to very very light, with a barely visible dusting. Gusts perhaps 10-15 in the treetops, could barely feel it as I was transferring wood from yard to porch.

Saw a few flakes at 1 PM but steady light snow only began abut 2:25. Bottom of the green canoe is nicely speckled but no color change on the leaf litter.

Especially for temps.

Quite fitting for a cartoon map.

Will verify when hippopotami fly.

D: 46.2", J: 27.5", F: 46.5", M: 18.8", A: MIA, as the storms went away until the end-of-month delguge that flooded Ft. Kent. 3/31/08? Had 0.7" - season's last decent event was 3.7" on 3/28-29. Only 2 double-digit snows, 10.7" on Dec 3-4 and 12.5" on Jan 1-2. I'm guessing your 14" storm was Jan 15 - we were just north of that near stationary yellow banana on radar and got 8", Farmington co-op less than 6". AUG had 10" in 4.5 hr as I left for Farmington - wife had been rear-ended on Rt 2 and got a meatwagon ride to the hospital to check if the sternum clips (from double bypass 3 months earlier) had opened. Negative, fortunately. As I drove up Rt 27 that day in SN++, the snowbanks were indistinguishable from road or field. I stayed on track by watching the phone line to my right, hoping it wouldn't cross the road and send me into the left-side ditch.

Expect 34° RA like 3 days ago, maybe with some pingers rather than that event's slushies, and more wind this time. (But not damaging winds this far inland at low elev.) Mountains probably get the kitchen sink - SN to sleetfest to ZR, and eventually to RA.

The other nice thing about that winter is that, except for the usual Grinch storm (12/24 that year), there was almost no events with -type issues - some IP in 1st of the 8 Feb storms but all flakeage all the time for the rest.

Reached 48 here. The March 1 Manitoba Mauler was progged for 10-14" atop our 43" pack and I figured 50s easily. Verified at 6". Season piled up more than 3,800 SDDs, nearly a thousand more than any other year here. Every intersection was peek-a-boo for 2 months.

Temp dropped into the upper 20s by 6 PM here; at 6 AM it was still upper 20s. 3rd or 4th time this month we've had forecasts for good rad but wound up with clouds, wind, or both.

Up here it was 07-08, no blockbusters but 2 moderate snows per week on average from early Dec thru much of March. Snowpack retention worthy of Fort Kent. (And there the pack was even more enormous.) 10-11 was an average winter here, made AN by the 10-15" on April Fools.

Nothingburger this far north. Probably took a hard right, though that's only a guess.