tamarack

We took a trip south in April 1988 to visit family in VA, and the tree damage along I-84 at the higher elevations of Duchess County was catastrophic. IMO, it was worse, though less widespread, than the breakage along I-84/90 in CT/MA from the 2011 Octobomb (which also presaged a crummy winter for snow.)

NYC's strongest Dec winds on record, and their max that day was 13. The day before, the Giants and Packers played for the NFL championship at Yankee Stadium in conditions that rivaled the famed "Ice Bowl" at Lambeau a few years later. Temps were 25F less cold at YS but the 50-60 gusts made up for that. Poor Y.A. Tittle couldn't run his vaunted passing offense at all (Giants' only score was from blocking a punt) while Jerry Kramer was only 3-of-5 for FG from inside 40 yards (and probably did well in gauging the wind to make even 3.)

Possibly the strongest winds I've ever experienced came on that date, gusts probably near 70 on a day with temps -8/5, pretty Arctic for NNJ. The wind tipped 2-ft diam. oaks out of semi-frozen ground, shattered plate glass windows, nearly ripped 10" of black ice from the nearby reservoir (lots got crumpled onto the lee shore), and created 6-ft drifts from the 2" of wet snow that fell late on 12/29. Only the 1950 Apps gale can rival it for winds I've felt, with Hazel, Doria (both in NNJ) and Bob (in Gardiner) a step down. And it was definitely a storm, but to the north. BGR had 29.5" and Old Town/Orono 40"+, with 60 mph winds and temps that cycled from below zero to near freezing and back again. NNJ was just getting the cyclonic flow behind the blizzard. "The Storm That Ate Bangor"

Only a couple inches of dust up here, but most fell at -8 to -12. I preferred 2/2/205 - 5F less cold but 7.5" with near-blizz conditions. (Coldest I've ever seen for accumulating snow - not much, only 0.5" - was -25 on 1/4/1981 in Ft. Kent.)

Better than that, we had mostly IP, less than 0.1" of ZR. But the 2002 reminder is painful, with our forecast 8-12" verifying at 1", while 10 miles south in Belgrade village they got the 8" and 20 miles SE of there Augusta had 15". Ultra sharp cutoff. That Brockton pack-vanish is amazing. I thought Farmington's drop from 40" to 8" that month was pretty special until I saw that. Of course, we got only light snow from the big blizz, and losing 30"+ pack in January is not supposed to happen in the Maine foothills. That whole winter was a mix of wow! and yuck! Easily the snowieast of our 13 winters in Gardiner (138.6", 30" more than #2 1992-93), but it pumped the brakes too much. Dec 1-22 great, rest of month meh, Jan 1-15 with 3 snowstorms, then came the 3 torch deluges. Feb 1-20 cold (8F BN) and fairly snowy, then two rainy thaws and +13 temps. March 1-11 was 11F BN with two good snowstorms, building the pack to near 2 ft, then in 12 days it was all gone. (No complaints about April, though. Its 23" snow trails only 1982 and 2007 for my April records.)

12/21-22/08 brought 15.5" of 14:1 fluff, nicely windblown. The earlier storm produced 2.1", just as was forecast for here. Even though light, it was a pretty snowfall that lasted almost 20 hours. It reminded me of the opening ceremony of the Lillehammer Olympics - nice flakes drifting by, enough to accumulate but not to make the roads slippery, as the modest rate allowed traffic to blow the powder onto the shoulders. Never can seem to escape the Grinch in the past 15 years (except maybe 2010). In 19 Decembers here, I've tracked just 4 non-Grinch holiday seasons: 2000, 2002, 2010, and 2013. We've had 12 rainy snow-eater Grinches, and 3 years (1999, 2006, 2015) in which there was no snow for the Grinch to steal (though each of the 3 had Grinch-ey wx.) . My temperature records show a distinct bump-up for the week 12/22-28, and 12/25 has had less cumulative snowfall than any other day of the month.

That 12/21-22/08 storm was one of the few here that had 3+ hours of blizz criteria. Did a round trip to Farmington to deliver our son to his (then) job with Big Apple - graveyard shift - and couldn't see much over 100'. Then it dropped to less than 50 as we were following "something" that was kicking up the pow. Got to the stoplight in town and saw that it was a loaded log truck. Trip took just under an hour and I came home to 2" on the porch steps I'd swept just before heading out. Our high temps for 21-22 were 12 and 15. Was nice to get that dump after getting fringed by the one 36 hr earlier.

Going way back, and beyond SNE, we had conditions like that while I was home on semester break in Jan. 1965. NYC temps/precip below (Our NNJ area ran 5-10F colder than the city in winter): 1/23/65 47 24 0.64" 1.0" 0 (High @ 12:01 AM, low @ 11:59 PM. Depth taken at noon, so none yet.) 1/24/65 32 24 0.51" 2.2" 3" (Hi-lo just the opposite times as yesterday.) A major Grinch on Dec. 25-27 had stripped the lake of what had been safe ice, so I was eager to go ice fishing that Saturday morning. Temps during the rainy overnight had dropped from 40s thru the 30s, and P-type went to IP during breakfast, with moderate pellet-pelting thru the day, but the fishing was good. Overnight the temp moved back into the 20s, and soon after I set the traps, P-type switched to ZR, which continued thru the day with about 0.3" accretion. (Also made a mess of my topwater traps.) By mid afternoon I had to put on the creepers to get around safely, not unusual on the ice. However, I also needed them to walk up thru the woods to our house, and that was a first. Even a heel-stomp had no effect, other than pain in the foot. Next day the neighbor kids were skating around in their back yard. 98 Yankees were better all around than 27. Better pitching in '98; much more dominant hitting in '27. Take your pick.

Much prefer the 21" of moist powder up here, on precisely 2.10" LE - not making this up. We measured 5.5" by my 9 PM obs time on the 29th, then 15.5" after that for the 30th. One of my comments on that storm is below: "Many SN/-SN/SN stutters for 11 hr, then bombs away! 17" from 8P-3A"

I was measuring trees on permanent plots on state land 5 miles west of LFD a week after the first Oct event, and the footing was quite treacherous because falling leaves had covered the snow, the only time I've observed (and fallen because of) that phenomenon. Quite a lot of aspen branches/trees broken along the Long Falls Dam Road as well. March 2001 with 58.3" is Farmington's snowiest for any month not starting with "F" - 3 Febs have topped 60". I had 55.5", only 9.5" from the 3/5-6 event while they measured 14". The 19" storm (18" in Farmington) on 30-31 brought the depth up to 48" at both locations, tallest ever so late in the season - for Farmington, with depth records back into the 1940s, for me, even when Fort Kent is included. (46" on 3/31/1984 is next.) The Feb-Mar total that year, 96.6", misses Farmington's Feb-Mar record by just 0.4", losing to 1993 (51.0, 46.0), and snowfall records date back thru 1893. #3 is 1969 at 84.0", thanks to the 67" in Feb.

Saw more of that in Gardiner than at my foothills location, and I missed the one true blue bomb - was in SC for the 16" on 3/22-23/2001. That storm, according to friends, was a "can't stick" event for several hours before the S+ arrived near sunset and continued thru the night - nice wet branches to catch sticky snow. About 20% of the fir, the most abundant species by far on my woodlot, had their tops broken out by the snow. (Eustis recorded 34.5" from that storm, and 10 miles to its south/1000'+ higher elevation, the final load from our harvest on the Redington Public Lot headed out just as the snow got serious. Just in time - probably 40" or more up there, atop the 4-5' already OG.)

Like here, 2.18" LE, mainly IP (4.5") with some ZR/RA at the end. Messy but made the pack bulletproof. The 21" on Dec 29-30 wasn't exactly paste, but I think it was heavy enough to break limbs off the fir we transplanted in 1998. Might also have been the March blizzard, or both. That latter storm, though 3rd largest (15.5" vs 2 @ 21") was the winter's best, due to 5 hours of SN+ with gusts into the 40s. 1st blizzard-criteria conditions I'd witnessed since 12/21-22/2008 and only the 2nd (12/6-7/2003 the other) in 19 winters here. Jan 2015 also met the criteria, judging by our neighbor's pics and description, but we were in SNJ at the time.

Probably depends on one's location. JJA 3-month average at my place was 0.10F above my 19-year avg. (Only 2011, BN by 0.08F, is closer to the average.) Of course, the Farmington co-op's average for those 19 years is 0.62F higher than their average for 1981-10, so I'm measuring against an elevated platform.

It's really failing on my Meteostar link, showing 12z for 3 days ago. Did the rain and cold go away? Or just the rain?

I'd be the 2nd, except we don't have a laptop. heh...yeah. GFS has3 straight days of 50s here. We'll see, but I'll take the over on that. It's looking crappy either way though. GFS is into its magical disappearing qpf mode, now that we're under 100 hr. Showed about 2" for Mon-Tues yesterday, and 2/3" this morning. Two days of 50s dz, just what the garden needs.

Pete's Pig is decent barbecue, too, though I'm anything but knowledgeable about that item. I've had the V-I duck just once - excellent but I like seafood even more. GFS had begun the miraculously disappearing qpf act once again at 06z, dropping tomorrow's precip down to barely over a tenth. If I'd gotten all the day5-7 qpf since June 1 my garden would be drowning. As it is, I'm about 50% of my avg for that period.

Congrats to them (and to you!) One of the camps directly off Rt 27 or more private? You can sit inside to watch the storms arrive, or scoot up the Mountain Road for a panorama (or Blueberry Hill, off Watson Pond Road for an even better perspective. And if you like to fish, please help reduce the pike population that's pretty well wrecked what was once one of the finest landlocked salmon ponds anywhere.

After it destroyed a few million trees in northern MN on the 4th and continued thru the night, it hit Maine 4-7 AM on 7/5. We salvaged about 3,000 cords of blowdown in our West Region and abutting landowners had it even worse. Multiple campers were injured by falling trees at both Umbagog Lake and Chain of Ponds. Not injured but rather surprised were the two campers at Big Eddy (just downstream of Long Falls Dam on Flagstaff), when their tent was uprooted and rolled across the campground at 4:30 AM. Probably just as well they didn't realize that trees were crashing down all around them like flyswatters trying to squash a skittering bug. My place caught only the southern fringe, with a 40+ gust or two and a bit of rain. How often does this type of system continue thru the night and persist for nearly 24 hr? Edit: I may be conflating this derecho with some other event, but I recall something about its maintaining energy after the bow had dissipated and passing off the mid Maine coast. Then it curved clockwise over the W. Atlantic and cased some damage in coastal Carolinas.

850 only 2C at FVE in mid July? Seeing would be believing. (I did record a frost in Ft. Kent on 7/31/78, but with perfect rad cooling in a drought, I doubt that 850s were that low.)

Both unusual for the pattern, but... it's longevity is also extending beyond normal residence for in situ circulation types. It's been going on since April really ...with a couple few periods here in there where it relaxes, but only before rushing to get back to that same basal flow structure at least excuse imagined. It's been pretty meh here since the March blizzard. April, May and June have each featured a 3-day warm-to-hot spell with temps 10-20F AN, while only one day (5/9 at -10.3) was double-digit BN. Yet the 3-month avg temp is just 0.03F AN. No gullywashers, no lightning closer than a mile (only one hit inside 2.5 miles), no really strong winds, etc, etc. This even while 5 tornados hit in one day 45-60 miles to my SW and nickel hail much closer than that. GYX recent AFD talks of strong storms tomorrow "south of Rt 2" (among other places.) I live less than 2 miles north of that road - figures. The above looks a lot like whining, but that's not the intent. In 19 winters here I've seen just 3 events that met blizzard criteria - wind speed, visibility, duration. The first 2 came on 12/6-7/03 and 12/21-22, and #3 was by far the "bliizardy-est." (Jan 27-28, 2015 also met the criteria and its single-digit temps would make it a worthy contender, but since I was in SNJ or driving north during that storm, it doesn't count.)

My July cooldown comes 7th-12th, when my non-smoothed averages drop about 3F from the heat of end-of-June, then climb back to enter the long plateau. And while January has the widest variations on average of any month, March 2012 takes the prize for greatest span of any individual month, touching -10 during the first week then 80 at the top of the record-crushing heat wave. That 90F difference even exceeds anything from the far more variable wx in Fort Kent, where my greatest was 87F (-47/40) in January of 1979. That month did feature the most day to day variability I ever expect in one month. In 10 years there I saw 5 days in January that failed to get down to 32 or below; all occurred in 1979. That month also had my coldest temp, tied for 2nd coldest (-42) plus the 5th coldest (-39). Several of the above-32 minima came on while PWM was getting a 6.6" snowfall, and that -47 was reached while PWM was in the midst of its #2 storm, 27.1". Your climate sounds great to me but I'm also glad I'm not in the valley where it averages 3-4° warmer than me. Lots of cool mornings in summer - average low for July is 54.3 - and foothills CAD in winter. Except for upslope, which is non-existent here, I'm in a good spot considering the modest (390') elevation. However, the foothills sweet spot for snow, at least among co-op sites, is 25 miles to my SW in Hartford, at 700'. Their records date back to May 1, 1998; mine start the 17th of that month, making comparisons useful. They average 106" per season to my 89" (Farmington at 480' averaged 91" for those same 19 seasons.) Hartford's average for peak pack is 34" to my 28, and this past winter they topped out at 62" while my 47" fell 2" short of 2/09. It helped that they got 26"/11" from Feb's final 2 snows while I had to "settle" for 21"/6". However, we're virtually identical in SDDs (they lead, 1,723 to 1,715), meaning my place has slightly better retention, probably because my lawn/garden opening is smaller. Never seen the Hartford co-op setup, however, so that's just a guess.

Like my frost-pocket minima, they represent our respective microclimates but don't offer good portrayals of the overall airmasses.

Exactly 4F milder than at my place, for both max and min. Only working on year 20 so my averages change with each day entered. Currently my warmest day is 7/29 with 76.8/55.2. However, there are 12 days which all round up to 77/55, so a more useful way (to me, anyway) to describe peak-of-summer is to include all consecutive days within 1.0F of the warmest. That stretch currently runs 7/10 thru 8/8, a 30-day plateau. Using the same method, winter's valley is far more brief, a 9-day run 1/18-26, with 1/21 coldest at 23.8/1.4. The far more extensive data from the Farmington co-op shows a distinct late Jan bump followed by a slight retreat into Feb. It's a small bump on the full record, 1893 on, with the average rising only 0.2F from the Jan bottom of 15.2 on the 17th, then going to a second low of 15.1 on Feb. 4, 18 days later. The 1971-2000 period shows a more significant "January thaw", with average temp sinking to 11.6 on 1/16 before climbing to 14.2 on the 30th. They then slide back to 13.1 on 2/5 before beginning the steady climb out of winter.

Probably accurate if "summer type wx" is 82/52. The anti crowd is lots more numerous if the definition is 95/72. Tip's "108 days" works for part of the region, but since it extends thru about Oct. 20 it's invalid for my area - all (micro)climate is local? One criterion I use for "heat" (as opposed to warmth) is a daily mean of 70+. In 19 years here, only one day later than Sept. 11 (9/26/2007) hit that mark, and my max temp in October is 80. Of course, this whole "days getting shorter, summer is on the downslide" is pure snark.

Friday looks pretty cloudy at MP2, but the weekend shouldn't be a washout, or a mank-fest.