tamarack

Thanks for the link - a fun read. According to the article, Jan. 8, 1968 had a spell with temps running -38 to -46 and winds averaging 92 mph. What's the WCI for -46/92? About -110? The comment about eyes frozen shut reminds me of what I called "walk backwards days" when I lived in N. Maine. These had temps double-digits below zero and very strong winds. When one was facing to windward, a gust would make the eyes water and the first blink froze the lids together, at which point one had to turn away and cover the eyes with (protected) hands until things thawed. There was maybe 4-5 such days in my 10 years there.

In the woods (and 20'+ off the ground), that triple fork is classic for broadwing hawk nests. I've seen more of them in "tri-horn" YB than in any other species or stem form. Yellow birch likes a moist soil, moderately well to well drained, but will tolerate a somewhat wetter site. I'm not familiar with river birch preferences but guess they would be similar. Paper birch will tolaerate a drier site but doesn't do well in wetter areas. The clumping probably won't affect height growth as long as the site is reasonably fertile, but diameter growth of the individual stems probably won't be as fast as on a single-stem tree - competition for light being the main reason. The clumped version is more popular for landcaping, it looks more natural because that’s how they typically grow in nature. You actually can place them close to homes and driveways....they just dont provide shade. That seems odd, unless it's a cultivar that doesn't grow very tall. Our 4-stemmed paper birch (natural regeneration, not planted) is 35-40 feet tall and provides plenty of shade, and that species has less dense foliage than YB. Our paper birch was a single stem until damaged by the 1998 ice storm, after which it produced a set of suckers from the base. We selected the most vigorous 3, and 20 years later they're nearly as tall as the momma tree, though only about 5" diameter, half that of the original.

Is that definitely the MWN record? They touched -46 on 1/8/1968, and while I don't know their wind speed that day, it was quite breezy where I then lived in NNJ. Another prospect might be late Dec (30,31) of 1962. Temps "only" -41/-40 those days, but to the east the BGR area was getting 30-40" with 16-ft drifts and 60 mph gusts. Meanwhile NYC was establishing its fastest Dec wind on record.

Excellent/interesting thread. Big Black River, near the NW border with Quebec, hit a verified -50 that day to set a new state record. It was probably flat calm or nearly so when the record was set. However, I'm confident that the state has had significantly colder WCIs than that. Try looking at Caribou on 12/25/1980, 1/3,4/1981, 1/17,18/1982, and/or 1/14/1988. On that latter day, CAR was reporting WCI (old scale) of -85 with temp -20. At the Forest Service building in Portage Lake, the (non-verified) thermometer read -32 and the wind gauge (probably a good one, given the importance for fire control) was hovering either side of 30 mph. Christmas 1980 was notable for bitter cold and strong winds throughout the Northeast, and though it was less windy 10 days later, CAR temps on Jan 4 were -16/-27, so probably a bit breezy at the airport. On 1/18/1982, my unofficial thermometer read -34 in the back settlement of Fort Kent, 4 miles SW from (and 450' higher than) the center of Town. No wind gauge, but the blowing snow suggests gusts well into the 30s and sustained 25+. CAR hit -28 that morning, Fort Kent -30.

Another GFS incredible shrinking qpf event. They were modeling about 1.5" for our area on Saturday, down to 0.5" by yesterday morning, and I reported all of 0.28" this morning, 0.25" coming 9A-3P yesterday and 0.03" of dz overnight. Very glad we jacked in the Friday afternoon showers, though the Sandy remains close to its record low flow for the date. Noted a very suspicious (to me) 2.03" from East Dixfield. In addition to that location being only 15 miles to my west, the other relatively nearby sites (Temple, 10 miles NNE; Newry, 25 miles W; Bethel, 30 miles W) were all close to 0.4". The only other Maine sites over 1", and not much over, were in midcoast Knox County.

One about 10 miles NW of Allagash village, at 1500' elev., might have some interesting snow totals. That Rocky Mt area always bagged a lot more snow than I had in Fort Kent.

And if "spares" really denotes plural, another one to New Sharon 2NW.

That estimate also includes deaths related to storm-caused infrastructure failure, a valid inclusion but one which makes comparisons with prior events problematic. Events like the Okeechobee storm in the 1920s, with fatalities listed in the 1000s but less that 4600, almost certainly had the death toll from just the direct storm impact - water and wind - rather than deaths coming days/weeks/months later. Full agreement on "Isaac's Storm" - a great piece of history.

And it came at a great time, as I finally had somewhat moist conditions for putting in most of the garden today. According to cocorahs (at 9 this morning), only 3 Maine volunteers had reported more than 0.45". Edit: Farmington came in later with 0.70", so now it's 4 sites Temple, which abuts Farmington's W side, had only 0.19".

Direct hit here, 1st time that's happened in 4 weeks - 0.92" from 2 showers 5-6:1 PM. 2nd had some weak thunder, and was much the heavier. Nearly as much RA in 75 minutes as in all of May. Now to feed mosquitos n the garden.

Nice. That sequence suggests triple digits for Labrador City. No CDDs last month, have not even brought out the fans. Except for the lack of rain, May 18 was as good as that month gets for my area, with only 2 days with maxima below 62 (56,59), though last weekend's clouds kept the month from being our sunniest May. The 1.15" rain is 0.65" below 2010, the previous holder of driest May. Temps averaged 69.8/39.9/54.8, finishing 2.5° AN. Highs ran +5.1 while lows were dead on the average. Diurnal range of 29.87 was an exact match with 2001 for greatest average range - each of those months had a total of 926° diurnal ranges. Sandy River was at 242 cfs this morning, only 5 cfs more than 2010, the record holder for June 1.

Three cloudy or mostly cloudy days without a drop this long weekend. We had nearly 1/2" in about 10 minutes, late evening on 5/4, and only 0.46" since then. Farmers working the fields are leaving rooster tails of dust.

I think the moose in Maine may be acquiring some resistance to the brainworm - either that or the collapse of deer populations in Northern Maine has reduced the threat. When we first moved to Maine in the 1970s, there were dozens of "moose disease" cases annually. Nowadays, we hardly ever hear of one, even in the southern part of the state where there are lots of deer and a moderate amount of moose. (Tests for brainworm done on deer - mainly on skulls donated by successful hunters - have consistently found 90%+ having the infection, so it's not the lack of inoculum.)

So a mom or dad who wants a smooth, cool, shock-absorbing surface on which to toss a ball with the kids is now an evil "hypercapitalist", with shades of racism. As several have noted, there are ways to achieve that lawn without dousing with manmade chemicals. (Disclosure: Our kids are long out on their own, though we like having a place for the grandkids to play where the burgeoning tick population is less likely to be a factor. And the only "man-made" chemical we've put on the lawn is lime.)

And folks like that don't see one bit of hyperbole in such language. One's yard character depends on one's family objectives. When we lived in southern Maine, I collected uncommon or out-of-their-range tree species for a mini arboretum, not an uncommon practice for foresters. We had white oak (uncommon there), chestnut oak (north of its range), American chestnut and Colorado blue spruce. When we moved to our present home, the buyer of our old place had two young children, and a backyard lawn was a lot more important to them than some odd-looking little trees. C'est la vie.

The spread from warmest April to coolest is only 8.24°, and only July/Aug/Sept are lower. Greatest spread is February (21.32°), thanks to 2015 being 14.38 BN. The Farmington co-op, with 125 years of record, naturally shows much greater extremes. The April span is 14.42°, Dec 25.74° with 1989 being 15.25° BN. Even July, with their least varying extremes, has a span of 11.34°. (These departures are from the full 125-year averages. Due probably to a warmer location 60+ years ago biasing that LT average, the Dec 1989 departure from the then-valid 30-year norms was "only" 12.69°.)

They're releasing that insect predator of winter moth larvae in Maine this spring, in hopes of that same level of success.

Unfortunately, so much of the "info" on such products comes either from agribusiness, out to make money, or from eco-advocates, who never met a pesticide they didn't hate. Our lawn has received zero pesticides in our 20 years here, unless one counts the moles dining on June bug grubs. However, I use a glyphosate product ("Eliminator", an off-patent version of the 1980s Roundup, with 41% glyphosate), mainly for hack-and-squirt timber stand improvement and for battling the poison ivy along our road (and in the SNJ yard where the grandkids play.)

April 2018 was the coldest of 20 here, about 0.5° below 2007. After a +5 on April Fools, 21 of the next 22 days were BN (13th the streak-breaker) and that span averaged -6.5. Then the final 7 days were all AN, with the month finishing at -3.5. The numbers: Avg max: 47.2 (Avg is 52.1) Warmest was 72 on the 24th. Had 3 days with max 32 or below, 5 (32), 15, 16 (both 31). Only 8 such days in 20 Aprils; apart from 2018, never later than 4/5. Avg min: 26.2 (Avg is 28.4) Coldest was 7 on the 6th. Mildest min was 46 on the 26th. Mean was 36.7 (Avg 40.2) Mildest mean was 53.5 on the 28th, coldest 22.5 on the 6th. Precip: 3.72" (Avg is 4.00") Largest calendar day was 0.98" on the 17th, which included some very minor ZR at the start. Snow: 4.5" (Avg is 5.0") Two thirds of that 4.5" came in a 75-minute period on the 6th, during the prettiest feather-fest I can remember. (Pics on pg 8 of "Snow Blitz - Napril 6", separate posts, during and next morning) Snowpack was 14" on 4/1, peaked at 16" on the 6th, and remained 1"+ thru the 18th. (Avg is 4/6, median 4/8) SDDs 1,997, 115% of Avg

Spring color is like impressionistic pastels, rather than the bright contrasts of autumn. Both are beautiful. One of my favorite spring colors comes from bigtooth aspen, leafing out 2-3 weeks later than its quaking cousin. Its unfolding leaves have dense whitish-green hairs on their undersides. From a distance these young leaves look silver, and since BTA often grows in clonal clumps, the silvery patches really stand out from other foliage. (BTA is an autumn winner as well, with colors ranging from bright yellow to deep orange, rather than the somewhat lighter yellow that characterizes QA.)

Pesticide residue in food is never a good thing. However, from what I've read, that link to cancer is based on a single controversial study, the controversy arising from the study's very loose adherence to scientific protocols.

Nowhere near the earliest leaf-out here (2010 is a lap ahead of that field), but so far it's one of the fastest. Driving home in Wednesday's heat we saw essentially no green on the trees, but 24 hours later the aspens had clearly begun, and since then the maples have followed suit, beech/birch ready to pop. Only a few drops yesterday instead of the 1/4" modeled and forecast, disappointing as I'd spot-seeded the lawn Saturday where the moles had left dirt-piles under the snow, and a nice little drink would've been a plus.

Season's first TS last evening, no close hits (9 seconds was the closest) and very little wind, but 5-10 minute downpour about 10:40 that produces most of yesterday's 0.49". Winds gusting well into the 30s this morning, heard something break and fall in our woodlot while out with the pup about 7:30. Hope it was a snag rather than another of the tall firs.

That reasoning could be applied to any fine for burning w/o a permit. Rangers have to work plenty of fires that started without someone having broken the law. My suggestion would be more of a restitution than a double tax. It's already being done in some SAR incidents caused by the stupidity of those involved. One that comes to mind is when some college-agers chose to ski past the out-of-bounds signs/ropes at Sugarloaf, and found themselves in dense unskiable woods on the Mt backside, floundering in 7' of snow. Their cell phone provided the alert, but they got dinged for a portion of the rescue costs.

A bill for the suppression costs would be appropriate - probably low 4 figures for a 2-acre surface fire.