tamarack

True for this next week, but I sure hope it's not true for later in the month. May 22-26, 2005 at my place had highs of 48,48,47,47,49 with 5.14" RA. It's hard to imagine a worse 4th week of May - maybe 1967 (especially NYC environs) would challenge it for unseasonally cold yuck. However, June 25, 2005 is my most recent day with 90+. That month also featured the one and only severe TS to hit my current domicile, on the 12th.

More than just that weekend. I recorded 25 days with rain that month, 23 with measurable, and 9 days which failed to get above 50, all with rain. The 8.20" precip was just over twice my May avg. The 18z GFS keeps the ULL around through day 10, ending up in the Gulf of Maine as yet another closed 500mb low enters the TN Valley. The current system almost moves into a 50/50 position, reinforcing the block. Meanwhile another major rain maker cuts across the Deep South with aim on the East coast around mid-month, trying to cut off again. It's almost a nightmare scenario verbatim for warm weather enthusiasts in the Northeast. Floods on the Ramapo, and Pompton/Passaic?

I'd go with Oct. 11 because of its much wider extent and for really deep snowfall - SoPA to central Maine were whitened, and lots of SNE-West up thru mid NH had 20"+.

Looks like your locale is near the line between 0.5-1.0 and 1.0-1.5, which over 6 weeks would be significant, and could come in two ways, lots of cool rain or frequent shots of crisp Canadian CAA. The first is miserable for all; the second means late frosts for many. Have not had a June frost here in 10 years. I mean it's a pretty ugly look. You can put a little lipstick on the pig and say that it probably won't rain as much under the upper low as the models say it will, but otherwise the chamber is not happy. At least nearly all the snow is gone in your CWA; it would probably take 4"+ RA to cause serious issues beyond the small streams. However, there's still considerable pack beneath the evergreens at 46.5N and points north. The 3.4" rain of 4/29/08 did little around here but blew away flood flow records in the St. John country.

Here it was 2008, 2.4° below my avg. Since then a couple years were perhaps half a degree BN while most were significantly AN and some were 4+ AN. After seeing 70+ north of Moosehead both Fri and Sat (with Fri morning bottoming about 50), I figured an adjustment was coming. Fortunately for potential flood threat, those warm days took most of the snow out of the woods except in extreme NW Maine.

Yeah, if we can get some sun. About the only time before Sunday that GFS has cloud cover much under 90% is during the wee hours Saturday morning. (Especially true where I'll be tomorrow thru Saturday noon, NW of Moosehead Lake.)

That's why fishing season begins on May 1 up there, rather than April 1 like much of Maine. In cold winters like 13-14, when my (milder) area never sniffed 70 until the 2nd week of May, some northern Maine lakes might not have cleared much before Memorial Day.

1976 and 2002, but 2 weeks later so 3-4F hotter? (Easter Sunday 1976 was mid-90s NYC to BOS as we headed from NNJ toward Maine, and we thought we were going to fry the engine on our Beetle - air-cooling isn't that great in that kind of heat. What a relief to reach northern Maine with temp 60 and still some snow piles.) Why useless? Beach or open pools That's fine if swimming in 50F water is your thing. (And up here, Long Lake in Belgrade still has ice in its north cove.) Big early heat usually includes stiff breezes and low humidity, accompanied by brush fires.

The 28th that year set or tied for all time warmest in April for some locations. Unfortunately, that cameo was almost all there was for summer heat here. We had 2 days with 80+ in April, one in May, then then just one more (7/29) until August 14-19 brought 6 straight (and ended the 80+ for the year.) During that span, we had a run of 56 days in which we had rain on 49. Met summer brought 23.8" precip that year, 4.7" more than any other JJA. No thanks! it's crazy what even green up can do to temps. Maximize the H85 temps before that. Bare-limbed hardwoods plus dry west winds is the recipe for heat in mid-late spring, especially in places where west-to-NW winds have some downsloping. Caribou managed to tie their hottest ever (96) on 5/22/77 with those factors in play, less than a month after their continuous snow cover ended. April was cold and May about average going into the 3 days with 96/95/94, and the leaves were less than halfway opened until that trifecta hit the throttle. (The dry westerlies can even work with full foliage. NNE's greatest heatwave, in July 1911 - all 3 states established their hottest ever that month - featured minima in the low-mid 60s after 100+ afternoons, evidence of pretty low dews.)

My highest temp in 2004 was in May. In 2009 it was April 29 and 2nd highest was May 21. Soon after, the incessant rains began. In 2010, May 25 tied about 5 other days for the year's warmest. We generally don't see leaf-out reach 50% until after May 20, and things warm more quickly in the absence of full shade and transpiration.

Except for Maine/Maritimes coastal sites. From MDI up thru Fundy, that would be 50s with fog so thick that one would only need to add a bit of vanilla to make a nice pudding.

2007 snows ended with whatever came with the Patriot's Day storm. Since 1997 snows for SNE mainly ended on the 1st, except for some on 18-19 for the western SNE hills, I'd think all of April would be in play. That's the annoying rub for objective unbiased weather enthusiast. Is this not a non-existent species?

Shoildn't dismiss 2007, snowiest April on record for many Maine points.

Only 15" for Boston, but 30% of that came during the Tuck Rule game. In that 2004 icebowl game against the Titans, the footballs probably dropped to about 10 PSI (but were so stiff that it didn't matter.)

Great 2-footer that dumped nearly 18" in a 10-hr period. And though points 20-40 miles N and NW of Farmington and 500-1,000' higher reported 32-40", Farmington's 40" report came either from a snowdrift (winds were strong and snow was about 15:1) or a slant-stick, IMO. Our church is about 1.1 mile SSE of the co-op site and 100' higher, and when I got there perhaps an hour after the end of accumulating snow, the depth there looked just like the 24" I had at home. (I'd measured 6" at 9 PM and 18" more about 12 hr later. The co-op recorded 14" by midnight and 26" after - don't know how often the board was cleared.) I've always considered that co-op measurement as being a foot or so overdone. New Sharon co-op had 23", Kingfield had 25.4", Livermore Falls (2 towns S of Farmington) 22.0".

Snowblower breaker, and gross is the right term. I had about 60% of that in the mess of late Feb 2010 - the stuff fell like overly moist mashed potatoes, 2,68" water for 10.7" snow, then 1.14" catspaw rain on top, leaving an immovable 7" of glop. Fortunately (?) my snowblower was already broken. Pushing scoopfuls of that stuff across unfrozen ground is an experience I'd rather not repeat.

My mistake - I had assumed you were in VT at the time. I suspect your current locale got only a brush-dusting from that one. Edit: BTV 1", St. Johnsbury 1.5".

I'm surprised your area did that well, as in Maine there was a very sharp northside cutoff. My place was forecast for 8-12" and got 1", while 10 miles SE there was 8" in Belgrade, and 20 miles SSE from there, parts of Augusta got 15". At GYX they had 18", their largest in their (started 1997) records until Feb. 2013 blew it away by almost 9".

I remain skeptical on using dendrochronology to estimate temperature changes in climate, because a couple degrees one way or the other won't do much to affect diameter growth. (Reproductive success in the coldest part of a species' range might be another story.) However, trees react much more significantly and quickly to large changes in available soil moisture, so for any place where snowpack has a large impact on growing season moisture, tree ring width ought to be a useful proxy.

Had to check on this, and found that Alaska wildfires have burned about 1.9 million acres this year. That's a huge area, 1.5 times the size of Yellowstone. However, it's not 50% of the state, but less than 1%. Maybe the smoke from those fires has spread over 50%, but that's not what is said in the part I boldfaced. Or maybe if one adds wildfire acrage for the past several decades...

Love living in the woods, but having tall trees around the house (especially toward north) isn't helpful at these times. At best I could detect a glow from that direction, but short of driving to a hilltop location, that would be all.

Always like reading (and now seeing/hearing) about this event, even though it was a clean though windy whiff for central Maine.

We got into EZ-Pass thanks to the Garden State Parkway, which used to have the EZ-Pass lanes far right at one toll plaza then far left at the next, with the crush of waiting traffic making lane switches nearly impossible, leading to heartburn. Having the grandkids in Illinois (now in SNJ) also makes the electronic version preferable.

Well, at least it was in the banter thread. However, my understanding was that a facet of warming in the East was milder minima, which would result in slightly lower diurnal ranges.

Easier to set at that time, but with 100 years to be broken at a later date. IMO, the size of the observational network would be the strongest bias, with fewer stations in the 19th and early 20th century (and, unfortunately, in recent years. I've noted a number of very long term sites having ceased reporting during the past 5 years.) I've found many sites with records beginning August 1, 1948, perhaps a postwar effort to add robustness, and a small but interesting number for which records begin Jan. 1, 1893. The more places being observed, the greater the chances of catching an extreme. The -50 in 2009 which reset Maine's cold extreme came, IMO, because there was finally a station recording in the far NW part of the state. There are a number of anecdotal accounts of sub-minus 50 temps from that area, -52 at Estcourt Station, -54 at Nine-Mile Bridge on the St. John (recounted in the book of that name) and others. And now both Clayton Lake and Allagash have winked out, leaving that cold quadrant with nothing except Big Black.