tamarack

Odd that both of you found disappointment in your early years in "snow country", or maybe not so odd, as that was my Maine experience after moving to BGR in Jan 1973. Had a nice 8" event late that month, a paste mess in late Feb, and winter was cooked. Yay for snowy Maine. Next year storm after storm either became rain or was wide right. Biggest event was 9" in 2nd week of April, thus avoiding the setting of a new snow futility record. My 3 years there featured only 2 double-digit snows, 12" of 5:1 stuff (at 50 mph, IP hurts!) April 3-5, 1975, then an 11" blizzard the following December, 2 weeks before we moved to Ft. Kent. Even there, while getting lots of snowstorms, none exceeded 8" until late December 1976. That first partial winter ended (for snow) with 8" on St. Patrick's Day. Biggest subsequent event was the 1.5" that came while I was tilling the garden on May 7. Of course, later winters more than made up for that. For me, storm power ranks above snow depth in ranking storms, though I prefer all snow (or at least almost all) to any serious p-type messes, no matter how windy. Top 3 (chronologically): Feb. 1961: 24" (at least - it included NYC's fastest Feb wind on record) atop 2'+ pack, paralyzing travel and crushing NJ snow depth records. April 1982: The 17" doesn't make my top 20 for depth, but gusts approached 60 and even the mongo removal equipment in the County couldn't keep up with the drifting. March 2017: Even farther down the accumulation list, at 15.5", but it was all snow, windblown down to 7:1 ratio and still piling up the drifts. (If I'd been at home for Jan 2015, that would replace this one.)

So I'm a day late. Aren't the seasonal changes earlier in mid-continent than at places closer to the coast? Peak summer, to me, is a plateau rather than a peak. For my temps that plateau runs July 9-August 8, as my warmest day averages 65.9 and that 31-day span has averages within 1° or less of that "peak." (The winter within-1° "valley" is much narrower - Jan 18-25.) Another evolution of Coc k. Now dews over 60 and temps in the 80’s fit the definition. Noted This ignores what I might call "weather relativity." At my location, a sunny 85/62 on June 1st would feel gross. In late July after several days of 70+ dews, that same combo is CoC.

June 12-Sept 9. 91 days would end on Sept 10; 92 starts on June 11. We are much more likely to see frost/freeze in September than June too. Very true. I've had 32 or below in 5 of 21 Junes, most recently 2007, though there have been 33s and 34s since then (a 34 last month.) Only one year, 2011, failed to get down to 32 or lower in Sept, with first frost (a doozy - 25°) on 10/6. Have had frosts/freezes from 9/1 to 9/30 the other years. (Last Sept's was on the 2nd.)

For summer warmth, especially downeast. That cool water has a huge effect on anyone within a few miles of the coast. Long time ago (1978), but one crazy example was a late May heat wave in the north, in which HUL reached 96 while at the same time EPO was a foggy 49 just 90 miles away (though they'd been a bit milder before the sea breeze kicked in.) You include June too? Maybe back in our home in NNJ but you’re barely out of snow season! As PF noted, it's met summer. If I limited "summer" to the warmest 2-month (say, 61 day) period, it would run June 23-Aug 21. And heat can come at strange times. Last summer's 4 warmest days: 91 May 19 88 June 11 87 June 12 85 Sept 24 Go figure.

True, if one ignores the first 90% of June, with its early chill then lots of CoC. A good bit this month as well, with 9 mornings sub-50 (average here is 7), though this past week's tropics pushed the average minima from 1.1 BN to 1.3 AN. That 121 HX must come from assuming the 67 is rh, which at 97° would be a TD of around 85.

Had modest rain (0.24"), moderate winds, best lightning show of the year. We've had our entry panel pop from close strikes before, but this time the transformer at our service line crackled, too. No blinks, no issues - unlike Turner, about 2/3 of the way from here to Dryslot. Reports that half the town was dark.

Noisy though short (0.24") TS arrived 5 PM yesterday. A fat and absolutely vertical (from my vantage point) bolt blew slabs off an aspen 1/3 mile from the house. It also produced snaps and cracks from our entry panel and from the transformer across the street - without making the lights even blink. Storm had some 30+ gusts, too, and much stronger ones 20 miles to my SW in Turner - much tree damage and power loss there.

Nor have I - doubt I've experienced hurricane force in gusts, though the top 2 events on the list below may have gusted to 70. I still can't decide which was the stronger. 1950 tipped more trees, but the oaks had a few more old leaves hanging in late Nov than late Dec, plus the ground was partially frozen for the 1962 winds. 1a, Nov 1950 Apps gale 1b, Dec 31, 1962 - backside NW winds from the Bangor blizzard 3, Oct 1954 Hazel 4, Aug 1991 Bob 5, Aug 1971 Doria 6, April 1982 blizzard For #4 we lived in S.Maine, #6 in N.Maine, the others in NNJ.

If there's an oak correlation, I think it's secondary (warming climate helps oaks and ticks) rather than due to acorns as rodent food. Very few oaks in my neighborhood (most highgraded out in past cuttings) and plenty of ticks. A co-worker got ticked several years ago in Moose River (twp north of Jackman) and there are essentially no oaks there. Long duration snowpack protects those small rodent vectors, and as Justin replied to my earlier post, it doesn't take a huge depth of snow cover. Your higher elevation and cooler climate are probably the major factor, IMO. Also, pics of your forest type suggest good pine marten habitat, and they live mostly on mice and voles (plus the occasional snowshoe hare bonanza.)

No boom (only thunder came from raindrop impacts), but over 1" rain, mostly in that shower. Much of my homeward commute was done with wipers in 2nd gear. Looks like a sprinkle compared to your area.

Nice looking echoes just west of my place - maybe this line will put something significant in the gauge.

Unfortunately, in those tick-catching seasons I neither tagged a deer nor got particularly close to one. Sitting on logs/stumps for a couple dozen hours over the season does offer lots of opportunity for any ambulatory ticks, however. There are plenty of proven cogent scientists of multiple disciplinary science background in the world, who will tell you that the present course of humanity is not sustainable...and that is true in the preclusive sense - the beauty about that is, it is true whether you believe it or not. Not sure what "preclusive sense" in the bolded phrase is intended to mean. I'd add that fairly recent history (say, from Malthus forward) has often stated words to the effect that "the present course of humanity is not sustainable", and so far whatever process/problem was being referenced has been at least partly overcome. This history in no way should be taken as a license to wreck ecosystems. The situation might be likened to a nice buck in Maine's November woods. He can successfully elude hunters 20 times, but if he slips up on the 21st, he's freezer bound. Better we should work harder at practical means of shifting our energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables, than to encounter that "21st hunter", a problem we cannot overcome.

Yawn... Have not experienced even a 30-mph gust from a TC since Floyd. Irene was wet but the wind was gone before she got this far north.

Thanks for the additional info, especially the inch-or-more factoid. As for the 40° activity threshold, that may be selling them short. It's been a couple years since I brought home deer ticks after hunting for deer in November, but some of those "infestable" days never reached 40. of course, I sit on logs rather than in a tree, so maybe my butt warmed the microclimate sufficient to wake them up.

Right. Sun trying to fight its way thru the clouds, but looks like 5th straight day of cloudy/m.cloudy skies. All that tropical PWAT has brought barely over 1" here, nearly all coming noon Sunday thru 9 AM Monday. (Cocorahs update: Pembroke, way down east, also reported 0.03", so I now share 81st place, of 84, with that observer. The 2 towns nearest to me reported 0.32" and 0.43".)

Maybe it's my high rating of snowpack that downgrades 95-96 for me, though getting missed/grazed by some of the bigger events also plays a part. That season whipsawed between early month greatness ("early" ranging from 11 to 21 days) followed by late month meh (Dec) or blechh! (JFMA) Without including my Ft. Kent experience (that would be cheating), 95-96 might not make my top-10 winters since I moved to Maine 45 years ago. 86-87, 92-93, 93-94, and probably 89-90 all rank higher in my 13 Gardiner winters, while 00-01, 04-05, 07-08, 08-09, 13-14, and 16-17 all come in ahead for my current BY. (14-15 would too, but for the frustration of so many awful whiffs while missing out on the one really major event at my place. The half winter of 06-07 is also a contender.)

I wonder if the little terrors are adapting. There was only modest snow depth when the brutal cold arrived just prior to New Year's, and the frigid mornings weren't helped by near (sometimes below) zero maxima, for nearly 2 weeks - not much insulation for small rodents and their passengers. Yet this spring-summer has seen ticks, both deer and dog, in huge numbers on the southern Maine woodlots we manage, and there's been quite a few (mostly deer) at my foothills locale.

Same as what I had by 7 this morning, only the radar suggested hole-in-bat rather than a miss. Of the 64 Maine observers having checked in by 8, mine ranked 62nd, topping only the 2 from Aroostook. Even #61, a paltry 0.07", more than doubled my "total". Looks like it's done, too, with maybe/hopefully another 0.2" having fallen.

Last measurable at my place was a shower about 8:30 AM Monday. We'll see if things move far enough east tonight to produce something beyond sweat.

A quick browse of the climod site discovered some 77s there, 7/22/2011 and a couple in August 1988 - 2 in a 3-day stretch with "M" for the middle day's low.

I've read that the waters around PEI often get into the 70s, far milder than in the Fundy region. Some "overflow" from the Gulf Stream? I came across this snapping turtle on the side of the main road by the entrance of development where I reside and tried to pick it up to help it cross the road, but it wasn't having it so it snapped at me. I gave up after a couple attempts and then decided to let it cross on its own as it was not worth risking a finger or worse. Fortunately, it made the trek safely without any further intervention from me, but this was one mean turtle! I've picked up other turtles in the past to help them cross the road before and they'd just hide in their shells, but not this one. Luckily he didn't bite a finger off. Back in the 1960s when I was catching snappers near my NNJ home - some up to 45 lb - I'd pick them up by the tail so as to stay away from the business end. I've since read that such handling can cause spine injuries, which weren't an issue for reptiles headed for the soup pot. Supposedly the safe way (for animal and person) to handle them is by using both hands on the back half of the shell. Or you could shove a long (3-4 ft) stick at the turtle's head and drag it off the road by its own "teeth" - might cause some road rash on the plastron, however.

And the 06z run brings less than 1/2" to Augusta today thru Friday, and takes until day 12 to reach 1". Would be ironic to spend a couple weeks in this mega-moisture "river" and be BN for precip. 1st half of August 1988 is my standard for dynamic dew duration. 2013 was drippy too, but at a lower swamp status than '88.

Palms instead of pines? Pretty big water hazard, too. Augusta has had about 15 minutes of sun so far, in about the same number of bright spells. Still approaching 80, with TD 71.

TD higher now (near 70) than the temp got yesterday (66), and thru 7 AM I'd dumped 0.86" from the gauge, with another 30 dbz patch over the garden about 8:30. Saturday made 12 sunny/mostly sunny days this month, most I've recorded in 21 Julys. May not get any more for a while, perhaps not until well into August.

Took the Kennebec trip twice. 1st time they were releasing 4,800 cfs and the big rapids in the upper gorge (above our lunch stop) were loads of fun, and so were the lesser rips below. Guides steered for safety in the upper section, but aimed for the biggest bumps on the lower. 2nd time, a year later, the release was 8,400 and some of the upper rapids were class 5 (12' standing waves and back hydraulics) which the guides avoided. The ones we hit were wild enough. Lower gorge was just a fast float - all that water had drowned the lesser rips and we reached the takeout an hour faster than trip #1.