tamarack

The boletes are pretty distinctive. I've yet to find Boletus edulis, the best of that genus, but used to pick birch boletes when we lived up north. Haven't seen any on our woodlot. The one who told me about the boletes had a thick book on mushrooms, edible species, poisonous, non-poisonous (probably not tasty but non-toxic). His mushroom test (tongue firmly in cheek) was to take a bite, wait 20 minutes and if one feels dizzy, don't eat any more. He then noted that some of the most toxic ones don't produce symptoms for several hours, and the effects are irreversible.

The mid-60s drought was huge in SNE/MA. At Central Park, only a very wet November prevented 1963 being the driest since records began there in 1869, pushing it back to 3rd place (temporarily). 1964 did break the record and 1965 had 6" less than '64. 1966 was tracking very close to '65 thru August - it's still NYC's driest met summer and 2nd only to 2010 for hottest. Then 4-6" fell on 9/21/66; one storm doesn't end a multi-year drought, of course, but from then on, we had normal to AN precip. The city's water managers breathed sighs of relief, as their massive reservoir system was down to a couple weeks' supply. In 1965, six states recorded their driest year, the 3 SNE states plus NJ, PA, DE. NY missed, as its Southern Tier counties' climo is considerably drier than the rest of the state, and its driest is in that region.

Even when they don't spring. While gathering firewood west of Allagash Village, I encountered a horizontal sapling springpole (1-1.5" dia.) that blocked my access to a nice pole-size beech that had been bulldozed over during road building. I carefully cut the sapling from above (wrong way, but Game of Logging was yet to be developed) but it only "sprang" a couple inches and would swing like a turnstile. I bucked the tree and began tossing 4-foot pieces over the sapling and toward the pickup. The last piece was 5 feet, and at the but end, probably near 100 lb. As I tossed it forward, the far end caught the sapling, and at the end of my throw the strongly deflected "turnstile" slipped over the log and caught me squarely on the forehead. When the stars finally stopped circling, I realized how fortunate I had been - a hit that powerful anywhere on my head but where it struck would've been very destructive, possibly fatal. We actually had some sun, first in 3 days. Some storms in the area, though they look to slide by to the north. Rain isn't needed right now, but I like a noisy TS. Other than Feb 10 (when I was trying to protect food platters we were loading into the car for a church supper, so distracted from enjoying the storm), we've not had even a moderate TS since June 2022.

Absolutely. Our landlord when we first moved to Fort Kent had a firewood business, among other interests, and some years after we'd moved to our first house, he was out alone working on wood. He had no memory of what happened, just that he awakened in great pain, while sitting on a stump. After walking out to his truck and driving to the hospital (needless to say, he was tough), doctors found 7 ribs broken, right close to the spine, along with some other trauma. Springpole to the back? He was unable to cut wood for a month or so, but I'm sure he continued shearing his Christmas trees!

Greenbriar is one plant that I've happily never seen in Maine, but we had impenetrable thickets of it in NNJ. I've donated enough blood to blackberry bushes in Maine, usually while surveying recent (<10 years old) harvests to check the status of regeneration. I assume you'll dump that little dead leaner before attacking the big dead tree.

In addition to greater variability, CC is higher dews/minima. Looking back 113 years to NNE's hottest run, most sites would drop into the 60s after their 100+ afternoons. For the hottest 9 days, July 3-11, Bridgton's avg temp was 99/67, Farmington 98/62, EEN 99/63, LEW 95/67. Only ASH (100/70) bucked that trend.

Surprising, since we reached 90 at our transpiration-cooled site last month, on the 19th, and narrowly missed our first double play in 22 years with 89 the next day.

-3.5 here yesterday, thanks to the first sub-70 max of the month. Five straight BN days have dropped the month average from +5.1 to +3.4. With next week's warmup, we may finish near +4, which would be our warmest July of 27 here.

Precip has been all over the place here during the period Novie to now: Month Avg 23-24 Departure (Boldface denotes a new record here. July record is 7.91"; I don't think we'll reach that.) NOV 4.21 2.63 -1.58 DEC 4.74 9.35 +4.61 JAN 3.31 5.47 +2.16 FEB 2.97 0.95 -2.02 MAR 3.68 8.67 +4.99 APR 4.09 3.51 -0.58 MAY 3.86 4.25 +0.39 JUN 5.15 5.74 +0.59 JUL 4.04 4.84 +0.80 as of 7 AM today. We might add another inch by Friday morning. Total: 36.05 45.41 +9.36

PWM had 100/76 that day, their warmest minimum on record and the daily mean tied Hot Saturday (103/73) for their hottest. Some thunder and RA+ between 4:30 and 5 this morning, spooking our dog and giving the garden 0.85". More to come though only DZ at present. Dews back up after yesterday's low of 45, the month's coolest. July is now AN for precip with 4.84" thru 7 this morning. 6 of the past 8 months have been AN with both Dec and March setting new marks for precip. Only Feb (driest of 26 - DJFM was a precip rollercoaster) and April were BN.

When we were responsible for mowing my maternal grandparents' 3/4-acre lawn, each mow would discover 2 or 3 nests. For ones close to the house, my dad's 'medicine' was to wait until full darkness, pour in a few oz gas, then toss in a match. One very well established nest still had a small flame flickering the next morning and the soil had collapsed as the interior yellowjacket-paper structure burned, leaving a hole bigger than a 20-gallon washtub. We have reached the peak. Happy slide down to winter day Same here - 76.7/55.5/66.1 today. However, my data is still "live", and adjusts automatically with each entry, as my numbers for here started 5/17/98 and there's a whole week with means within 0.15° of that peak. If I'm still recording when the 2001-2030 norms are put in place (would be about my 85th bd), I'd need to decide whether to lock in my 01-30 averages or continue the present practice. Probably easier to just keep using all the current formulas.

GYX forecast isn't all that nice Tuesday afternoon thru Friday.

Only 16 of the past 60 months here were BN, and if my records went back thru 1991, it might've been a couple fewer thanks to the Pinatubo cooldown. I'd go for an average of 10 AN months/year but not 100%; wx is too variable for that. Difficult, OK. Very difficult, maybe late this decade.

Things have improved in that setting. Long ago (mid 1950s) when I went to the YMCA camp in NNJ, each cabin had chores each day, with rotating jobs. Thus, once in each 2-week attendance, each cabin had a day cleaning out the garbage room, which was about 6 feet wide and 25 feet deep, no windows nor vents. We used an ammonia cleanser, quite strong, such that we learned to breathe only with our mouth while inside. Only 10-15 minutes exposure, but in today's world that would be making lawyers richer. 51 this morning and it won't reach 80 this afternoon, nice enough to move some wood onto the porch. Might even notch an HDD - only 2 thus far this month, on the 2nd when the low was 47.

Yes, but what kind of memories. I've bragged on here about July 2-4, 1966, its triple-digit days and how hot it was behind the counter where I was cooking burgers and dogs at Curtis-Wright's NNJ lake resort. Also about being at BHB on Hot Saturday when it was 100 at water's edge. I would NOT wish to repeat those days. And the best part of Hot Saturday was the wonderful BD that came thru that night. They at camp every day with tons of activities including the beach. With counselors on high alert for kids with heat exhaustion.

Would not call it crazy, as we've had Januarys of +6.6, +7.3 and +9.0 (2023), so 3 of 26 have had that kind of departures, and 3 others have been 5.0 to 5.4 AN. However, +6.7 in July, were it to finish there, would destroy all-time records. (Our warmest July here is a mere +3.0; MTD is +5.1.)

One of the longest to retain power after landfall. It went E-T, curved thru the OV then swept thru Maine west-to-east, flattening about 1,000 cords of nice residual stands at Bigelow, south from Flagstaff Lake.

Different folks, different preferences. Mine would be 75/50, except for some rain for the garden and the woods. (Of course, climo is 8-10° cooler here.)

After the 7-10 TS about 3 PM yesterday, we caught 1/4" from the north edge of a large storm 2 hours later, again with no strikes within 5 miles. In this northerly locale, the strongest TS ought to be in met summer, but our most house-shaking thunder came in Dec 2000 and the closest strike (55 yards away) in March 2021. This year, the noisiest TS by far was on Feb 10. What's with the cold season having the strongest TS? Have not seen a single bolt this year - missed those in Feb as I was hunched over while putting food platters into the car for our church's Valentine potluck, trying to avoid having the food drown in the downpour. MTD rain is a tick under 4" and temp running +5.1, a huge departure for any July or August.

First 2 storms passed south (10 miles) and north (surprised we got nothing it was so close). Raining now from the 2nd wave, still no close strikes (<3 miles) since last Feb 10.

Our place is near the top of that frame and directly north from the "o" of Lewiston. We heard some distant rumbles about 9 PM then had 0.28" from 10 to midnight as the juicy stuff passed by to our south. Garden likes it, however.

My wife and her sister took a whale-watching cruise out of BHB yesterday, and the temp offshore was probably ~60. Dense fog that condensed on surfaces plus the wind created by the boat's travel had folks dressing like they were on a North Pole expedition. However, they watched a humpback doing its awesome things, saw an 18-foot basking shark and a mola mola (ocean sunfish) and on the way back, a pod of porpoises, adults and young'uns. A great trip. 70+ dews happen in October every few years too. Only reached 60s here in Oct; our mildest daily minimum in that month is 59. That said, in 1999 we had dews well into the 70s during the 2nd week of September.

That one was way south of us. The one I remember was July 4-5, 1999. It flattened hundreds of acres of Boundary Waters forest on the 4th then blew down a lot more in NH/Maine on the 5th while injuring campers at Umbagog Lake and Chain of Ponds. The Rangeley AP recorded a gust of 83 mph. Two campers at Big Eddy (downstream from Long Falls Dam) had their tent stakes fail, the wind then rolling the (occupied) tent across the campground as nearby trees were getting swatted down left and right. The Lincoln Plantation's east public lot had a 60-70 acre patch flattened by straight-line wind; at one spot I found a large healthy deep-rooted white birch flattened. 10 feet away was an overmature fir, shallow-rooted as always and probably with butt-rot, but completely undamaged. That derecho dissipated near BGR after creating a small tor near Bingham/Moscow. (Someone - dendrite? - noted that the residual energy was then carried south where it caused damaging storms in NC on 7/6.)

Reminds me of a high end 3H day on Parks and Lands' Duck Lake Unit, northeast from BGR. As we bounced along at 15 mph on an old road, the Eastern region forester with me pointed out the window at the large squadron of deer flies pacing the truck and said, "Doesn't that make you eager to get out into the woods?"

Unless there's a significant change, we're working on our warmest July (or any month) since moving here in 1998 and it may not be close. That said, it's being done without smashing any daily max records here, though the dews are about as nasty as it gets. It's consistent heat but nothing like last month when we came within 1° of our first 90+ couplet in 22 years. In a converse way, it's reminding me of February 2015, which broke few daily records while setting the Feb (or all time) coldest month all over New England, by never warming up at all.