tamarack

Low 40s this morning, then another CoC day.

For those 2 species there's probably little difference - perhaps the elm might go first. Substitute aspen for either and the difference becomes stark. Aspen wood is far weaker and it's not only a tall species but one with all its foliage near the top, thus maximizing the wind's leverage. On my woodlot (and anywhere else I've looked), aspen suffers most from wind when leaves are full, balsam fir when leaves have fallen.

Same for me. Not a wind chill situation, but when I handle firewood (outdoors) barehanded at +20, it feels cold. At -20 it feels painful.

Exactly. If they had tested, say, Lombardy poplar as well as beech, they might have reached a different conclusion.

Color me VERY unimpressed. During storms, there is a critical wind speed, of around 42 m/s (90 mph), at which almost all tree trunks break – irrespective of their size or species – according to a new study done by researchers in France If this statement intends to say that winds of 90 mph will break nearly all trees, I'd have little argument (while noting that palms, which sometimes withstand stronger winds, are botanically very big grass.) However, the link seems to infer that all trees break at the same windspeed, and empirical evidence says otherwise. To explore this further, Virot and his colleagues conducted experiments on horizontal beech rods. While mechanical differences between different tree species are slight, beech was chosen as a wood with average proprieties So we can toss out all the lumber standards based on species? There's a good reason why wooden RR ties were made from dense hardwoods like oak and maple, not aspen or basswood. A test that not only works with limbless "trees" but uses wood from just one species, then applies those results as being the same for all species and to real trees in the forest has little practical validity, IMO. I'm glad the silviculturist's comments were added. A facet being used more recently for evaluating windfirmness is height-diameter ratio, that is, total height divided by diameter at 4.5' above ground, the standard for forest inventories in which only one diameter measurement per tree is taken. (Outside the US, it's 1.4m, essentially the same.) H:D ratios above 60 point toward lessening windfirmness, and those trees with 70+ have been found to be quite vulnerable. Taking into consideration that trees nearly triple in diameter for a doubling in their height Except they don't, other than perhaps as an average, and that differs widely among species - northern white cedar tapers far more rapidly than aspen or pine, and nearly all trees will have far more taper when open-grown than those in a dense stand. rant over (But thanks for the link.)

Assuming that's a serious comment, I'd find that quite interesting, though I'm still working full time (for about another year) and thus would have limited availability. An experienced arborist might do just as well, and probably better for tree damage in an urban environment. Somewhat of a non sequitor, but related to the thread topic: In 1986 straight line winds caused nearly 100% damage to about 600 acres 15 miles SE from Fort Kent. It flattened a SW-NE swath 4 miles long and up to 1/2 mile wide, tossing trees into the north end of Square Lake before dissipating. This event occurred quite late in season for strong convection up there, on Sept. 30. (Ironically, they had 3-6" snow on the same date in 1991.) The wind hit so suddenly on some acres that it snapped off large sound sugar maple 15-20 feet off the ground before the roots could be pulled out. I've always figured such damage was high end for such events, perhaps 80-100 mph, but would appreciate what folks would say who have much quantitative damage assessment experience.

Can't see the break point on the tree, so unable to know if there was defect predisposing it for defeat. However, H-V's description plus the windshield smashed by a flying limb certainly support your estimate.

Yesterday afternoon's line dropped a whopping 0.04" with one distant rumble, and I thought the forecast was a total fail. (Temp certainly was - P&C said 91, we stopped at 71.) Then the late evening Act II added 0.69" more in heavy but not torrential showers over 2+ hours. Not enough but glad for a decent watering. Though I often lament here about how severe storms detour around my particular spot, H-V's account is not one I wish ever to experience. That said, I love a good light show, especially one that includes some close hits - not on the house, please.

While the airport was reporting RA+ at 4 PM, I doubt we got 0.05" outside the office, 2 miles ESE. Another split/dodge.

Didn't reach 80 in Augusta, thanks to clouds, and the line of showers is on the doorstep.

TOR warning for Lincoln, NH and environs - storm looks to be coming straight down Rt 116 from Kinsman's Notch. Would losing 1,000+ ft elev in a dozen miles keep a funnel from touching ground, or have no effect? Nice line of showers moving into central Maine from the mts, though all the pretty colors separated and went N & S of the home front - doubt if we got more than a tenth or so.

Ever had Gifford's? (preferably at one of their Maine stores) Still mostly overcast at Augusta. Dews are rising but it will take a real blast to approach 90 here. At home had 0.03" before 7 from the warm front, with some more colorful echoes to the north.

I'd guess that it's not big enough, and wxeyeNH's reply is on target. Some chestnuts planted on the Hebron public lot (about 10 miles NW of dryslot) had nuts when about 4" diameter and less than 20 feet tall, so the one in the pic won't need to get all that much bigger. (Alas, all those older Hebron trees succumbed to the blight, and the 10 seedlings that I helped plant nearby some 15 years ago are apparently gone as well. )

Classic American chestnut sprouting after the above ground stem was killed by the blight.

On the WCI thread (Lakes/OV subforum) I noted having read a book titled "-148", about an attempted winter ascent of Denali that failed due to a huge windstorm. At one point a veteran bush pilot flew up hoping to check on the climbers, and reported a near "hover" above one spot while his airspeed indicator read 140 kt. Don't recall what the temps were at the climber's hiding place at the time. (And my read was years before the current WCI was developed.) That PF-posted video was wild. I thought the one serious dust devil I've seen was intense because it carried one of those waist-high ashtray thingies about 1/4 mile to the far side of a small lake, the black can describing circles in the air all the way. This one blows away that 1966 event. (Pun intended.) Edit: Two mistakes in the top paragraph. 1st is that book's title is "Minus 148" - try searching what I wrote above and you'll get the runaround. 2nd is that the team actually summited, 1st ever winter ascent, and got caught by the storm while descending, and still high up. The 1st edition of the book is dated 1969 (I read it in 1974 or 75), and Denali has been climbed several more times during winter since then, including a solo ascent a few years back.

PWM's coldest (midnight obs, so those 1/17 and 1/18 lows are 2 different mornings.): -39 2/16/1943 -31 2/15/1943 (My earlier -32 was an error.) -26 1/19/1971 -25 2/3/1971 -22 2/2/1961 -22 2/13/1967 -22 1/17/1971 -22 1/18/1971 4 @ -21: 1/24/48 to 1/20/1971. (No surprise that Jan 1971 is their coldest month on record.) I'm 99.9% sure that no other coastal site in the lower 48 has gotten colder than that -39. Even in AK, I think one would need to go north of the Aleutian Peninsula to find a colder morning.

Because NH has a station atop its tallest peak and AK does not? Disappointing 0.1" overnight. However, it's been showering since 11 AM, and probably dumped another 0.2" or so. Baby steps, especially since there's nothing on tap during the next 3 warm days.

I suspect this was a Northeast-based cold wave. The winds never quit during the coldest days (Jan 14-15), suggesting backside winds from a strong LP. Many record low maxima were measured during those two days. Seeing all the Jan 1985 WCI records reminds me that NNE missed the worst of that huge polar dome, catching only the fringes. Lows for that month in N. Maine were in the -20 neighborhood, modest for that area. However, we never sniffed 32; most locales had month's "warmest" in the mid - or even low - twenties. Dendrite's links included the brief but shockingly cold Feb 1943 blast. The cold for that one was centered well south of places like PQI. NYC touched -8, their 3rd coldest morning on record and 6° colder than anything since, and PWM - a stone's throw from salt water - reached an amazing -39, probably in flat calm. Their coldest WCI for that period would more likely have been the evening before. After a subzero afternoon (about -5, though the day's high was -2 at 12:01 AM) the temp plunged to -32 at 11:59 PM. Their 3rd coldest day was -26, in Jan 1971.

Some places just aren't suitable for warm-weather crops. The owner of a large logging outfit in NW Maine, with an office is just to the American side of the border across from St.-Pamphile, PQ, lost his tomatoes 4th of July week 4 straight years before throwing in the towel. It was a flat at 1,000' with gentle hills both east and west to allow the cold to gather right at the garden. When we lived on the flats in Ft. Kent, we saw flakes in both June and August, and a frost on 7/31/78 - singed my pumpkins and killed the beans next door. Taters, carrots, all the crucifers should be okay, but for tomatoes, peppers, squash, cukes, some sort of season-extending shelter is probably required.

Could be BWA, though it's usually more of a problem at lower elevations. It feeds on the needles, so I'm not sure if the stuff on the bark is related. Having said that, I agree that the number of "orange" fir seems higher this year that usual, and it's not always the larger/older ones as I'd expect - fir is a short-lived species so some of the older ones usually die each year. It's not spruce budworm, as populations in the US, though increasing, remain sufficiently low so that their feeding isn't noticeable. Unlike eastern Canada, PQ in particular, which is getting hammered. Farthest south I've seen fir in Maine is around mile 12 of the turnpike. However, I've noted a few along I-84 in NE PA, in the higher hills between Matamoros and Scranton.

A now-retired co-worker who lives a few miles west of CAR had (probably still has) a medium-size greenhouse. He'd overwinter tropical stull like lemon trees and bananas inside, then move their big pots out during the warm wx - had some nice lemon crops, but after 3 years with no fruit the banana was abandoned to the frost one autumn. He grew better melons up there than I could when I lived south of Augusta, but he also really worked at it. He'd spend entire weekends transplanting seedlings into peat pots, both for his own garden and to sell at farmers' markets. One summer when his 2 girls were in 1st/3rd grade, back around 1990, they were selling cukes 3-for-a-quarter from their front yard, and made over $200.

For some reason (I'm sure it's been well researched), the blight doesn't seem to affect the below-ground portion of American chestnuts, and as many folks have seen, that species' ability to remain viable and resprout is awesome. Oaks are great at resprouting, too, though I don't know if they could handle decades beneath a plow layer. However, the charcoal industry in SNE lived off oak sprouts (fancy term is "coppice management") - cut one tree and get 5-6 new ones growing like gangbusters, and for charcoal one needed neither huge stems nor nice straight, limb-free ones.

Not a huge pine pollen year here - though there's plenty it's not like 2 years ago when it looked like there might be enough to shovel. Worst pollen I ever saw was from red spruce, at Gardner Pond, some 25 miles SW from Ft. Kent. The stuff formed a bathtub ring on the lee shore that was 2 feet wide and 2-3" thick. Temps were quite warm and all that organic stuff began to stink.

And many cities chose to replace those dying elms with Norway maple. Lose-lose.

Another near miss for frost - probably was a repeat of Sunday's low of 35, after yesterday's 34. Though we've been as low as 28 in June here (6/4/2002), this is the first 4-day run of sub-40 minima, and with 6 such mornings, June 2018 trails only 2004 (8) for such cool dawns.