tamarack

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.

One data set I've used as a proxy for extreme events is the state records for hottest and coldest days, and wettest/driest years, 200 records in all. Two caveats: First, the smaller number of recording locations prior to 1900 will bias against representation from that time. Second, some of the temperature extremes note "also on earlier dates", which may also bias against earlier years. (Or not - Maine's hottest temp is one of the ties, but the earlier date occurred during the same week and location.) There are only 10 records set prior to 1890 and only one of those was for temperature. Then the 1890s, 1900s, and 1910s averaged 9 per decade. The 1920s set only 3 extremes. Then came the 1930s, with 23 record highs, 10 lows, 2 wettest, 17 driest, 52 extremes in all and top decade for all but wettest year. The next six decades averaged 17 each, ranging from 12 to 26. Extremes have been less common during the new millenium, with only 7 for 2000 on, though there may be updated records of which I'm not aware. The two most recent are both cold extremes, 2009 in Maine and 2011 in OK.

Npot necessarily. The Dec. 6-7, 2003 storm was one of the windiest I've seen in our somewhat protected (by forest) location, with gusts well into the 30s and much drifting, and it dumped 24" on 1.63" LE, ratio of 14.7.

First big January snowstorm in years, and I'm visiting family in S. NJ - expecting 12-16" down here, had about 1" from today's clipper. We were planning to drive home tomorrow - guess that's not a wise idea, but the Forester ought to make it on Wednesday. I'd be satisfied with the current GYX forecast of 8-12" for S. Franklin; would be nice to be able to get into the driveway Wednesday evening.

Much prefer taco's rating. To me, words like alarmist, skeptic, denier (in AGW context) are part of the vernacular and relate mainly to opinions being held. Words like arrogant, confused, misled, stupid seem far more heavily loaded and pejorative. Also, I think there's an unintentional oversight in that the above ratings apply those extra-loaded words only to #4 and below, and that skier would agree that the extreme alarmist camp includes folks to whom some/all of those words might apply.

Given tacoman's posts on CC, A-L-E-K's "denier" post would seem to place all the 3s,4s,5s in the denier camp, which would be classic "shift the middle" tactics,

Off topic ('cause it's NNE), but in the C.Maine New Year's Eve blizzard of 1962, a BGR plowtruck got paunched out near the old Pilot's Grill restaurant, then the 6-WD grader sent to rescue it got stuck, so they sent their large Cat dozer, and stuck that, too.

That event, like 5/9/77, 10/10/79, and the NNJ snows of late April '83/'86, showed how climo-capricious the very early/very late snows can be. Nary a flake in my Maine foothills BY, but as we headed to IL (granddaughter #3 arrival) on the 19th we saw snow OG at both ends of I-84, shady shoulders in N.CT and the hills east of Scranton, PA. Then, 2nd day after the snowfall, we saw considerable snow in the woods along I-80 in W.PA, along with some trees broken by leaf-on accum. Edit: Wonderful pics of 12/08; wish I some like it for 1/98 in Gardiner/AUG. THAT event was the most impactful wx of any kind I've experienced, and #2 just might be the NNJ ice storm exactly 45 years earlier. At least that 1953 storm is partly responsible for my lifelong interest in wx and trees. 12/08: I'm still not quite sure how/why MBY had the same rain (2", albeit after 4" snow) at the same 2m temps as ORH, yet escaped with 0.2" ice accretion and lots of cold puddles, but your dewpoint comment offers another clue - perhaps higher over MBY. I already think we had a thinner, if equally cold, sub-32 surface layer, so that the raindrops splashed in at less cool temps than down your way.

Lived in Ft. Kent then, and our March storm came on 14-15 after 10 days of mid-Jan cold. 26.5" (CAR had 29.0", their record until the 12/25-27/05 stall-out) with 65" OG - 80" up in the woods, each the most I've measured - IMBY/anywhere, respectively. (The 28-29 event never got to N.Maine.) We had 16" LE in Nov-Dec, and probably more than half of it was still on the ground on 12/31, with more piling up each week, except for the last half of Feb, when our 59" snowpack settled to 35" - not much melted. After the big March storm my snowpack held 16" LE, and I'm guessing the much deeper and equally solid snow NW of Allagash might've had 20". Unlike 2008, no April rain = no flooding that spring.

Weird, indeed. Midcoast Maine had two tornados (EF1 and EF0) on Thanksgiving, 2005, during a rather modest storm, 2-5" most places with some mixing along tidewater.

Farmington had -30 the morning of 1/27/94, then went up to 40 on the 28th, 4" snow followed by 1" RA. It's not often in the east one sees 70F change from one day to the next. Yet to experience a snowstorm in SNE; seen a few in NNJ and Maine. Those pics of 12/08 ice bring back memories of 1/1998. Damage IMBY looked somewhat similar, though other areas I saw then were even worse, and '98 sets the standard for widespread ice. I know of no other ice storm with anywhere near the areal coverage of that one.

From about 9A to 3P, that 1/14/08 radar had the nicest "banana" of 30-35 dbz curving from west of Sebago thru LEW and AUG to lower Penobscot Bay. It remained nearly stationary (the heavy precip area) for about 6 hr. AUG got 10" between 9:30 A and 2 P, at which time I headed to Farmington in 0.1 mile vis, because my wife had gotten rear-ended near home and then a meatwagon ride to the hosp. (She was fine except for back pain; fortunately all the sternum clips installed 3 months earlier during her bypass op held together.) The banana's north edge just grazed MBY - right when the accident occurred - for 8", while Farmington had only moderate SN and 5.5". Largest accum I found was 15.9" in Bridgton. GYX had 15". I know I've pimped these out before, but my April Fool's pics from eastern. Thanks, CoastalWx. If you hadn't, I was going to ask. Those are my favorite of all snow pics I've viewed here ("here" includes Eastern, of course), with LEK's monster snowblitz pics from 2006 or '07 as chief competition.