tamarack

51 minutes ago, NorEastermass128 said:

Lost my dad to cancer yesterday after a short three month battle. He passed away peacefully at MGH. Last week, we were just talking about tuning up his snow blower for this season. Losing a parent, and one that I was so close to, is so hard. Going to miss the big guy. 

Even when the loss is not much of a surprise, the hurt is deep.  My parents passed more than 30 years ago.  I still miss them but also have some wonderful memories.  May your memories provide some solace.

15 hours ago, kdxken said:

How much is tourism down up there? The weather has been god awful. A couple summers like this one can do some serious damage. "Vermont? Are you kidding? It's always raining "

 

With great scenery and good attractions, rain is tolerable.  Every one of our 8 August days in Norway 7 years back had some rain and 2 were all-day rains but we had a wonderful time.  The one in Oslo was fortunately our planned museum day.  The rain started with sunrise thunder and became a mid-50s downpour in late afternoon as we waited 45 (not nice) minutes outside the Viking Museum until the right bus arrived.  The rainy day in Bergen (which calls itself the rainiest city in Europe) was quite light and only made the coffee taste better.

Full sun this morning, first time in almost 2 weeks to see that at 7 AM.  Have not checked the max-min but suspect it dipped under 50.  Since today's average here is 74/52, that's not unusual.

14 hours ago, DavisStraight said:

Probably but I thought they were the same, sure looks like the one I saw but I'm not a cat expert.

Edit, think you nailed it, the one's I saw didn't have that tuft on their ears like a lynx, still quite a sight to see.

The other differences are the longer hind legs and furry "snowshoe" feet of the lynx, the former being much easier to spot.  They are slowly replacing bobcats north to south in Maine, with both species occurring on the same range mostly at the line of advance.  When we lived in Fort Kent (76-85) only bobcats were being trapped there.

Those golf course animals look like bob-kittens.

Six days with lots of clouds and forecasts of significant rain.  What we got was six days averaging 68/56 and a whole 0.11", not enough to make a puddle.  We don't really need the rain, but if it's going to be cool and cloudy, I wish it would do something.  "Pee or get off the pot" as the old saying goes.

16 hours ago, kdxken said:

Speaking of pines. I noticed this one today while working. 10 ft 8 inches in circumference. Would that be considered big in your neck of the woods?

That's a dandy, no limbs on the first log and the bark indicates it's not all that old (100-120?) for a 34.4" dbh tree.  Our 2 dozen or so pines near the road are 20-30" dbh and 100-120' tall.  Unfortunately, the Dec 18 storm reduced 2 of those to 60-foot "masts" with a couple weak-looking branches near the breaks.  There's a limby 40"+ monster just to the neighbor's side of the boundary stone wall back in the woods, probably a sentinel retained when the high-quality pines were harvested.

Nice oblique pic of your woods.  Doesn't seem to have much oak, which is a bit surprising, but a nice puckle of pine in the middle.

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Yesterday’s -9 departure locally at MVL was the lowest negative departure day since April 25th.

We haven’t see this type of relative cold to climo in almost 4 months!

 

As you already know, departures are greatest in the cold months and the difference is large. 
Our greatest August daily departures are +13 and -14.  For December it's +28 and -36.

10 hours ago, met_fan said:

A brief break from the temperature talk - my son is starting college in Brunswick, ME this fall. What does the average snowfall look like up there so close to the coast?

PWM averages high 60s, and Brunswick would be a bit above that - farther NE and its airport isn't right on tidewater.  Like most of SNE, PWM's snow has been pitiful this decade, running in the 40s.
If he's entering Bowdoin, check out the nearby Bowdoin Pines.  Not true old growth but very impressive.

Cloudy night kept temps above 50 instead of that SNE fake cold.  

48 minutes ago, weathafella said:

My school decided to keep us there until the worst of Donna had passed.  I used to walk to and from school-I was in the 8th grade for Donna, but in this case my mother came to pick me up and we drove home.  Watching the winds and rains unexpectedly nail us while we were in school was amazing especially since I had science class and the student teacher we had was kind of a wx weenie.   3 months later we were entering one amazing winter!

I had just begun my freshman year when Donna roared thru, and 1960-61 reached triple digits at my place, though the Feb 3-4 storm was estimate only (24") thanks to the wild winds.  Depth increases at nearby sites point to at least that much.  Essentially nothing thru 12/10, then:  18" Dec 11-12;   20" Jan 19-20;   24" Feb 3-4 plus a surprise paste bomb (12") on 3/23.  Messy snows into mid-April and a few IP seen on 5/27.  From March 18-19, 1956 thru Feb. 3-4, 1961 we saw 7 storms of 18" or greater.  Even Fort Kent can't begin to touch that.  Closest is at our current place, Jan 2015 thru March 2018, with 6 storms of 15.5" to 21", but that run has 4 years before and 4 after without reaching even 14".

31 minutes ago, weathafella said:

For you and me, Carol, Edna, Hazel, Donna.  Nothing really has approached that 1954-60 experience since in my lifetime.   I was not here for Gloria.

Also had significant flooding from Connie's 5-7" but missed even more by a whisker as Diane was 2-3" here, far more to the north and west. 
We were let go from school at noon during Donna and I went down to the local beach - good place to watch the whitecaps and not much rain was falling.  A guy several years older went out in his Sailfish (sailboard that was a teens favorite) and promptly watched his mast get snapped.

1 hour ago, kdxken said:

The worst are the heating service contracts. If you have forced hot water than anything that touches water is not covered. If you have forced hot air, anything that touches hot air isn't covered.

I'm glad we have forced hot water (domestic hot water and back-up to the Jotul) as I'm usually full of hot air.

Sun tried to burn thru the clouds about 1:30 but it's back in hiding.

16 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

59.0 and just light rain now. Can’t recall those temps in august with rain.

We've had 6 sub-60 maxima in 26 Augusts here, and all but one had significant RA.  Now concerned for flash flooding from last night's 0.06", barely missing a classic 7-10 as the heavier rain avoided the Route 2 corridor from Bethel to Lincoln.  We don't really need lots of rain as August 24 is already a half inch above the average, but nighttime lightning is fun to watch.

3 hours ago, powderfreak said:

I just go by the mean temperatures as that’s the gold standard metric for temps and how it affects the natural environment.

If the average temperature is 5 degrees above the new warm baseline, the natural environment is torching… how it affects growing seasons, habitats, etc.  Don’t care how it gets there necessarily.

And I mean we joke about nighttime mins… but no one had A/C here 15 years ago.  Literally no one.  It gets down to 52F on average like the min says, everyone is fine windows open.  We now sit like 60-65F+ at night and everyone has A/C.  The torch has impacts.

That works with equal sunshine, as that's what runs the factories, and a day of 77/55 is likely to have more hours of sun than 70/62.
 

You can already envision the early morning posts from the usual suspects. 
48.2.. Feels great.. windows wide open .. hoodie on in August .. 

50.8 for the low so far… hoping to sneak into upper 40’s 

44.2 .. coldest since last May .. pool temp down to 69

47.6 .. gonna be chilly in the wood yard 

SLK down to 34.2 

Chilly day at 3k hiking with the dog today..bluebird skies but hoodie required even in mid afternoon 

GYX discussion this afternoon included the possibility of WCI's near freezing on the summits of the Whites tomorrow, cautioning hikers not to dress for the base conditions.

2 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Do you how warm +1.2 is.. especially at 1k.. lol

I think it's about 1.2° milder than the 1991-2020 normal at 1k.

For PF:  Our current +0.9° divides to maxima at -1.5 and minima at +3.4, almost 5° lower than the average diurnal range.

52 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

Only the ocean there is anywhere near normal 

We're not as far inland as PF, but the western Maine foothills aren't quite on tidewater and we're at +0.9 thru yesterday.  The mild minima this morning will probably push that to +1 or 1.1 but Tues-Thurs look to run 3-5° BN, which will move the average to about +0.3.  We'll likely finish between average to +1.5.  (Note:  Our records begin in May 1998, thus do not include the Pinatubo cooldown that's part of the 1991-2020 norms.  Might make a 0.5° difference.)

1 hour ago, dendrite said:

Low 60s for highs here the next two days. We’ve had trouble getting that cold at night. 

Sun making its occasional appearance, driving temp to low 70s after 4 days topping out between 67 and 71.  TD mid-upper 60s, feels stuffy as we'd had 2 weeks of lower dews.

58 minutes ago, ForestHillWx said:

The overdevelopment of many areas is going to exacerbate these types of events, just my humble opinion. The lack of farmlands/woods to absorb most, not all, will have downstream implications (pun intended).

Down here in NJ, the amount of townhome/condo complexs being built in traditional farmlands areas is staggering. With the skyrocketing property values, there’s little incentive to hold onto farmlands, hence continued development. 

Even some of the fertile farmlands southwest from the pine barrens are growing McMansions (for millionaires) instead of tomatoes and peaches.  

1 hour ago, CoastalWx said:

Is it me or does that area of CT get prone to heavy rain events. I feel like several 4-7” events have occurred there over last 5 years. 

As predicted by CC models, many places are getting frequent huge rain events.  The Sandy River has 95 years of flow records, and both #2 and #5 came last year - April 1987 still is tops.  And the 6/29/23 localized toad-strangler wrecked many miles of roads in southern Franklin County when 4-6" fell in <2 hours.  The 3 wettest December days here were 18/23, 23/22 and 25/20.  Five of our 12 wettest days came 2020 thru 2023, compared to 7 in our first 22 years here.  (So far, "wettest" day in 2024 is 2.18" on Jan 10, 9" snow followed by lots of RA, only time in 26 winters we had to have our driveway plowed - snowblower would clog every 4-5 feet.  Still time for a biggie this year.)

Wind damage from Gloria and from Bob was similar (extensive but not catastrophic) in Maine, but Bob had far more rain here.  PWM recorded 1.3" from Gloria and 8.2" from Bob, still the city's 2nd rainiest event, behind the 12"+ from the October 1996 northeast storm.  In September 1985 I'd just started working for Public Lands and was commuting weekly from Fort Kent to Augusta.  Governor Brennan closed state offices at noon that Friday, so I was able to drive north in daylight.  In FK it was just a strong fall storm, with about 1.5" and modest wind. 

Bob is the only TC in my experience that had backside NW winds as strong as the SE, though 95% of the rain came before the wind shift.  A stand of tall bigtooth aspen at the Hebron public lot, ~10 miles NW from LEW, was 2/3 flattened, 1/3 pointing NW and 1/3 pointing SE.  We had 6.41" at our (then) Gardiner home, greatest one-day precip I've measured (2nd was 6" from Belle in FK, August 1976) and 2nd highest for 24 hours behind the 8.9" from the PRE plus Doria in August 1971.

9 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Same temps on Tuesday as 12/25?

Another 12/20 mega-Grinch?

17 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Only giving a +1. Sorry.

About the same here, should finish about 70/60 against an average of 75/53.  Cloudy thru 2 PM with enough early mist to wet the gravel in the driveway, then some filtered sunny breaks though it's cloudy again.

3 hours ago, kdxken said:

My older uncles started their familys in the mid-fifties. Hence I have a cousin Connie and a cousin Diane. No Carol...

1954 relatives:  Carol, cousin; Edna, aunt; Hazel, great aunt.  Only Hazel had much punch at our NNJ home, tipping some trees and plastering the house with fragments from the tough old leaves, probably gusting to near 60.  I have no memory of Carol, and we flew kites during Edna.

That "Diane" clip covers only New England.  There were a number of fatalities in the MA, especially PA.  Connie's 5-6" took our main lake to the highest I've seen it, but we missed the worst of Diane, with only 2-3".

6 minutes ago, dendrite said:

I got a weenie from you. That may be a first.

A chicken weenie, not a weather weenie.  

(You need to add March/April to your snow sig.)

1 hour ago, Lava Rock said:

the chicken pic just brought me back to tuesday night whereby at 25mph I struck a chicken (think it was a rooster) with my road bike. Another cycling season cut short thanks to two broken ribs, a wrist and finger. Need surgery for finger next week. In Kevin Harts Tom Brady roast voice, "fawk you chicken"! The chicken was almost dead until the neighbor grabbed it from the road and put it out of its misery. Lots of Why did the chicken cross the road jokes from my cycling friends this week

Chickens asking why the bike came speeding down the road.
That said, OUCH!!!   But I still like chickens, even after Houdini the SNJ rooster punched a hole in my shin last May.  (He thought I was getting too chummy with his hens as I brought out some veggie scrap food for them.)

Very hazy sunshine this afternoon after the cloudy morning, temp low 70s.

1 hour ago, WinterWolf said:

Sure..it’s easy to sniff out, but at times(and it happens) the sniff can be wrong. We’ve seen it many times.  More often than not, your sniff will be correct, but if something is off, it changes things down the line. Especially at a week plus out in time.  
 

I know it’s more of a ball busting thing for Ineedsnow and DIT, but I just don’t like that kind of an attitude with regards to a science, that has so much chaos built in to it as meteorology does.

Point is, nobody knows anything for certain that is a week out in time/into the future.  Educated assumptions/you pointing out your ideas, that you pros recognize early on work most times, I get that, but not all times.  Bottom line for me…at 7-8 days away, there should be no football spiking in either direction. 
 

No spiking but often the trends point strongly in a certain direction and pro mets should say so.  Almost all forecasters predicted Sandy's sharp left turn, though not exactly when/where, such that landfall possibilities 7 days out ranged from ORF to CHH.  But we're a long way from 4/6/82 when the folks at CAR predicted cold windy flurries for the next day and got 26" instead (best bust ever!)  In their defense, everyone else also had the storm slanting east before it could impact N. Maine.

1 hour ago, tunafish said:

Oh no.  Torch!

 

Average here was 0.1° BN, but we're just east from the green/yellow change, so close enough.  Also had 3.65" rain during that week.  Aug 1-4 was +7.4 and 5th onward was -0.9, which has pulled month-to-date down to +1.3.