tamarack

The duration of snow cover in SNE/CNE? Still 8" pack this morning though it's hurting. Last year on 3/17 we were down to patches. Who knew that 23-24 would have that 3-storm 40"+ Hail Mary after the equinox?

Chickadees are calling spring's "phee-bee" rather than winter's "chick-a-dee-dee". Low clouds gone, mid-morn, full blue now.

Touched 50 yesterday, first time since mid November. Despite the full sun, that warmth only dropped the pack from 13" to 12". Low rh might've limited the melt and that solid pack easily carries our 45-lb Lab mix. Found depths 8" to 20" in the woods near our road while adding a medium-size white ash to the firewood supply.

That would be impressive. I'm at +2 but that's using my personal averages which began in May of 1998. If I'd had 1991-2020 norms at my site, the departure likely would've been +3 or +4. Nowhere near +7. Of course, we still have 12" on our lawn and 12-18" in the hardwood stands.

Only one (non-official) site with a short POR here - 5/98 onward, but the average max has barely moved while the min has climbed quite a bit. 10-year averages: Period - MAX MIN 1999-2008 52.6 30.4 2015-2024 52.7 31.9 1.5° in 16 years for lows, 0.8° for means - I'd call that significant. (SSS, of course)

5° AN here after the cold on 3/1-4, but I'd not call it "impressive" - only one day was 10+ AN. Might get some +15 days with the upcoming rain, however. GYX has been cautioning about ice jams. The Sandy jammed briefly in early Dec then the 2" RA cleared it. Re-jammed later that month, from just upriver from the New Sharon bridge to 1/4 mile upstream from the new bridge in Farmington Falls, about 5 river miles. Ice is probably being bottom-reduced a bit by river flow after the rain on 3/6.

Meaning that the only way humans can stop polluting is to die, preferably near the south pole so our rotting corpses don't return that CO2 into the air. As posted above, we are stewards of the planet, not the owners. "Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."

April 1982 is one of the 2 most powerful snowstorms I've experienced, even though its 17" total isn't in my top 20 for depth - the timing and the 60 mph gusts put it in with Feb 1961

More than rival. I've been in Maine for 52 years and haven't seen a storm very close to your top two. Lots more 8"+ events here and deeper/longer pack, but not the superbombs.

That 1983-84 winter included the only times in our Fort Kent days that school was closed due to snow, 1.5 days in 10 years. The Feb surprise cost a full day as the 1-3" forecast meant that the plow folks slept thru the 18" in 9 hours, waking up to a morning's worth of parking lot clearing. The March bomb started overnight with about 6" new by sunrise and another 6" forecast, so the buses ran. By late morning snow was falling at 3"/hour with radar showing lots more to come, so students re-entered the buses at noon. The 30 miles to Allagash has few hills but the 25 miles to Winterville has some notable climbs. Everyone got home okay as 2 feet plus accumulated. (CAR had 29.0", their biggest at the time.) The school superintendent lived next to the high school and folks figured that was why school was never closed. He said that was incorrect; he'd send his German shepherd out to get the morning paper. If she made it to the box, there would be school, even if he had to help her back to the house.

Those 3 weren't huge snowstorms, just powerful coastals. The season's big snows came March 23-24 and April 4-6, without much wind damage. Dec 18 was flooding rain (no snow) and destructive wind - possibly the 2nd greatest flood on record for the Kennebec watershed (after 1987) and longer power outage than I had in the 1998 ice storm, along with major wind damage to our woodlot. I had 9" on Jan 10 but the inch of rain atop made such a mess that for the first time ever, I paid to have my driveway plowed. Very high tides caused damage on the coast. Blower would jam every 4-5 feet, so I spared the machine. Jan 13 was similar though only 3.8" snow and record high tides that produced far more wreckage than the 10th.

True. Once one gets away from the coast, March is a winter month for NNE. (Especially the first half)

29.3" last March, with 22" in one dump on 3/23-24. Looks to be way BN this March (avg is 17.4" but 4 of 26 Marches had <4") unless something changes.

Last winter had the storms. The 3 events, 12/18, 1/10 and 1/13 were far more powerful than anything that has come our way this winter.

1983-84 in Fort Kent had 'only' 171" but the pack depth and SWE were enormous. Total precip Nov-Mar was over 25" and most was frozen. A significant IP/ZR event in mid-Dec produced a 3" crust (1.9" water) that would carry a bull moose. The 18.5" surprise (forecast was 1-3) in early Feb had the pack at 61" on the morning of 2/6 but 4 days of 25° AN chopped it to 37" by 2/16. On March 14-15 we had 26.5" that pushed the depth to 65" - 80" in the northern tip of Maine - with 16" SWE at home and probably near 20" on Big Twenty Twp. (Both that storm and that pack are the tallest I've experienced.) Then April was dry with many warm days after frosty nights, and all that water made it safely down the St. John.

The good and the bad. The local reservoir averaged only 27.1" for our first 6 winters (49-50 thru 54-55) in the Jersey Highlands. Then the next 6 winters it was 61.6", with 93" in 57-58 and 100" in 60-61. The "six-year famine" had no storms of double digits; the "years of plenty" had 7 events of 18-24".

Stayed in cloudy 30s thru noon, sun popped out shortly after and the temp jumped 10° in 90 minutes. Good pack-settler.

Same here. In 2005-06 our biggest snowfall was the same 5.9" in late January. Then we had only 7.8" the rest of the way. That season is the only one that failed to have a 6"+ event since we moved to Maine in January 1973. (Probably did not have a winter w/o a 6+ in NNJ after 1964-65, so once in the most recent 60 winters.)

Even in NNE, March has a Jekyll-Hyde character for snowfall. The past 5 years March has averaged 16.6", close to the 26-year average of 17.4", but year-to-year variability is wacky: 20 15.5" 21 0.1" 22 10.0" 23 27.9" 24 29.3" (27" after the equinox)

Other than for swimming, I haven't worn shorts in about 50 years. Between the puckerbrush and the blackflies, not a good choice for bushwhacking thru the Maine woods.

186.7" total for 76-77 with peak depth 54". We had no rain between 12/7 and 3/13, only snow, and had flakes on 82 of 90 days in DJF. After the mid-March thaw settled the pack by 20"+ and cold returned, the snow was so solid that we had 3-4 weeks of no-snowshoe travel thru the woods (would support a running moose), where the depth was 3-4 feet. We spent Christmas with family in NNJ while Fort Kent had 24" on 12/26-27, then another 12" that we drove thru during the night of 29-30 (another story). Our 2nd car, a blue VW Beetle, was just a white lump in the parking lot when we got home.

And Tuna's lawn might hold snow a bit longer than the downtown sidewalks of PWM. Man I haven’t seen such a flaccid ending to winter in a long time. I'll nominate 2021 - March total a slushy 0.1" followed by the rare April failing to reach 70.

Even a few shortleaf pines, one of the South's Big Four (longleaf, loblolly, slash, shortleaf) at its northerly extent. Pines and oaks on sand, classic fire type forest, similar to the Jersey pine barrens.

C+ for temps, thanks to the first BN for DJF in 6 years. C- as we entered March at 90% of average with no events 10"+. (About 75% of winters here have a double-digit.)

We had exactly one gust that approached that velocity. There were gusts into the 30s all day but we've had lots of such winds this winter. The pup and I were outside for her evening stroll at 10:15 when a gust at least 10 mph beyond the day's peak came roaring thru. Didn't hear anything break, surprisingly, maybe due to the one and done. (In contrast, almost all of the abundant tree damage in our woodlot on Dec. 18, 2023 commenced after an hour of the 50+ gusts.)