tamarack

Gypsies all done eating, probably pupating. Something else is at work now- any browntail moth over there?

Would those things even been given a name 20 years ago?

Just within Maine things can vary greatly. Last month was AN here but nothing special, while CAR notched its warmest month on record, going back to 1939.

The high end of that would be a major torch for my area, as met fall temps have been relatively stable for my 20 years here. Average is 45.20, coolest 43.10 in 2002, mildest 47.24 last year. Even the low end would be 3rd mildest of (then) 21 years.

Swamp maples are turning, and the paper birch alongside our driveway is dropping a few brownish leaves, things that always begin by mid August. Given that this month is contending to be the warmest of 21 Augusts here and with many fewer than average cool (sub-50) mornings, I think those changes are linked more closely to shortening daylength than to sensible wx.

Looks like hickory nuts, bark too, though not all that shaggy for shagbark hickory, the family member found farthest north and the only hickory native to Maine. American chestnut hulls are armed with painfully sharp spines which tend to soften a bit when nuts ripen. (And local squirrels have that softening timed to the minute.)

Upper 40s this AM, only the 2nd sub-50 minimum this month - may bag another Monday AM if clouds don't get in the way. August average minima here shows 8 in the 40s and one 30s. Won't get anywhere near that many sub-50s, but should pass 2003 (4) and avoid last place. GYX hinted at autumn-like air being "within shouting distance" later next week.

So much for my theory that the better retention here is due to "meatier" snow. Without including the little events, my ratio (for 20 winters, thus not perfectly comparable) is 10.51 - haven't run the SD, but gross average is essentially the same as yours. I think it's colder at my place, certainly in the morning at this frost pocket, and our small lawn is fully surrounded by tall trees in every direction but northwest - mostly hardwoods, but even leaf-off they block 25-40% of sunlight (or so stated the info I learned from my year in Urban Forestry.)

Does that 22.97" include all-liquid events? I keep LE records only for SN/IP, tossing any RA/ZR for mix/mess storms. Also, I haven't collated the data for mini events <2". Storms 2-3.9" have had an average ratio of 9.4-to-1, while for storms 4"+ it's 10.7. There's a greater proportion of IP in those lesser events. That high 10s ratio holds true for 6"+ thru 16"+, only climbing above 11-to-1 for storms 18"+, for which N=9, so not a robust set. My 2 biggest snows here, 24.0" on Dec 6-7, 2003 and Feb 22-23, 2009, averaged 13.8-to-1 (13.0 and 14.7, respectively.)

But only the JV version. I've not been in "The Armpit of the East" (for both its summer climate and its position in the Bay) during July/August, and never wish to be. However, dews 80+ in early Sept 1965 were just wonderful for full-pads two-a-days. I doubt it's gotten cooler since then.

Try minus 6.5. 12/24/15 ranks (I think) as NYC's greatest positive departure (+32?) for any day, any month. Having CDDs on Christmas Eve at 40 North is truly bizarre. And it's ironic that their greatest negative departure came 6 days later (and 98 years earlier) with the 2/-13 of 12/30/1917 being nearly -40.

On other subjects, I think our TS drought (all of 2 weeks) ended about 3 this afternoon. Lots of 40-50 dbz echoes and Doppler estimated precip near 1" (and near 2" a few miles west.) Hard to get that much rain in 30 minutes or less w/o some bangs, unless one is in a heavy TC band.

My quick search didn't filter out the close to normal months, and I think your +/-0.3C span to be quite reasonable. Though the departures look similar for Feb and Dec 2015, I consider the latter to be NYC's most anomalous month (for temps) since their records began in 1869. Feb 2015 is NYC's 3rd coldest, while the span (6.71F) between 12/15 and their 2nd mildest Dec (way back in 2001) is greater than the span between that #2 and their 60th mildest Dec. (My data is slightly different from yours - compared to 1981-2010 norms, I have 2/15 at +6.5C and 12/15 at +8.3. We may be using different "norms.")

Get them when they're pure white throughout and they're both safe and fairly tasty. Once the browning starts, they're at best very unpalatable, though I don't know if they're actually toxic.

Agreed, though I might leave out "much" for weeks, as I think the high-to-low ratios are less pronounced for that shorter period. In my short-term (starting with June 1998) records, there have been runs of 6+ consecutive AN months several times and, without checking, I don't think there's been any that long for BN months. (Have to check winter 2002-03 and shoulders, off-hand the best candidate.) Edit: Bad guess on my part. I've had 4 BN streaks of 6+ (all are 8 months) and 4 AN (7,7,8,9.) Take it with a bucketload of salt, however. The nearby co-op has recorded temps during my period of record that run 1.2° milder (from 0.2 in June to 2.3 in January) than their 1981-2010 norms, so their AN-streak advantage would be considerably greater than mine. She got lucky. The poison in mushrooms will not tarnish silver. People have died from this mistake Had a friend who was a skilled mycologist (he's since deceased, but not from mushrooms), and his fungus-testing quip was, "Take a bite and wait 15 minutes. If you begin to feel dizzy, don't eat any more." That would work fine with some deadly species for which symptoms don't appear until 6+ hours after consumption.

In 20 years here I've recorded 22 days in January at least 20° AN and one day in July that almost reached 15° AN. BN days are even more skewed, with one 15° BN day in July and a dozen at least 25° BN in January, perhaps 30 making 20° BN (that stat needs some updating.) Average departures, AN/BN, are much greater in winter than in summer.

No thunder here since late July, though today's showers will probably bring the month to about 3", which would be 1" AN for th date.

Speaking only for my area, nothing could be worse than 2009, though by 2nd week of August things had improved to merely AN precip with lots of partly cloudy. June-July were another thing entirely, rain on 49 of 56 days at one stretch, and much of it was all-day stratiform stuff, more appropo for November. 2009 had the least sun of Julys 21 here, and June that year had the least of any month. Met summer 2009 brought 23.8" precip, 10.6" AN and 4.7" more than 2nd place. The only uglier month here was May 2005, which had the same duration of rain but at temps about 20° cooler. Many issues with that cloudiness chart, but the least/most pretty much reflect what I've recorded - Sept has been the sunniest month on average and Nov-Dec fight it out for least sunny.

If that fell on the Pompton-Passaic watershed, Route 23 in Riverdale-Pompton Plains would be closed for a week. (As it was back when I lived there, 1950-72: in 1955 - Connie/Diane - and 13 years later from a late May deluge. Seeing flood debris on the top railing of bridges was impressive.)

Just about right. Saturday I snipped off the tops of the tomato vines, so they can use their energy ripening the set fruit rather than trying to reach the sun. I try to do that 4-5 weeks before I think they'll get frosted. 'Least in modern times... I thought the Seattle Mariner's beat the Chicago Cups 1906 116 win total, with 116 .. a slightly more notable achievement due to the longer schedule? Neither team one the World Series in 2001 and 1906 respectively. Or perhaps otherwise, as the Mariners lost 46 games that season while the 1906 Cubbies lost only 36. (Then lost the WS to the "hitless wonders" Chisox - team BA was in the .220s.) Edit: Models were fine this weekend for my area, putting the cutoff near Route 2. We live a mile north of that road, and totaled a few teeny droplets yesterday morning. (After a 100% CoC Saturday.)

Comparing some of J.Spin's numbers with mine for the past 12 winters (11 for SDDs) illustrates the different character of our respective snows. I'm sure LE would show the same variation. (StandDev in parentheses): Location Waterbury New Sharon Avg snowfall 152.8 (37.3) 95.9 (25.7) Avg max depth 26.6 (8.5) 31.5 (12.6) Avg SDDs 1,312 (692) 1,975 (956)

Almost cloud-free here in Augusta, 78/49(!) with a NW breeze. 69/48 at FVE with gusts to 31 - after these past weeks that almost needs a WCI number.

No agenda, just your frequent mind-probing discussions. It's all good.

Not to worry - some days back, I got a similar kind of response for commenting that "normal" wx is merely the average of abnormal wx. This met summer is shaping up to be one of my warmest here, despite the BN June, and this month has a good shot at being the warmest August of our 21 years in the foothills. However, it's also a fact (noted earlier - in the banter thread?) that my average daily mean drops below 65° today for the 1st time since July 8, and it's all downhill for the next 5 months. I fully expect some semi-autumnal days later this month (maybe much later) but we're not about to go all August 1988, when the 1st half of the month was about +8 and the 2nd half -4. (Gardiner, where we lived in 1988, had avg temp of 77 for 1st half and 63 for 2nd half, with daily averages dropping a bit more than 2° 1st half/2nd half.) Fair enough. Just like on January 20th Winter's back breaks and climo starts rising again (at least at BTV) but you've got a lot of winter left. Temps start rising, true, but the midpoint of my snowfall season comes as Jan moves to Feb. That's unlike classic summer storminess; on average 2/3 of TS here come prior to August 1st.

They had only 0.79" in May, their 2nd driest May since 1920. However, June had 87% of avg precip and July 99%. Can't get their to-date number for August (Wunderground has become almost unusable since being eaten by TWC) but GYX is about 0.3" AN so far. Looks like PWM is very close to their average July 1st on.