tamarack

Finally got wi-fi back - out since Monday night. Genny still running, and it may keep on into the weekend. Some of the worst tree damage I've seen is within 2 miles of our place, including 3 large and 2 medium trees dumped on our 0.4-mile gravel road, 3 fir, one basswood, one a sizable fork from a pine. Most I've run the chainsaw in years. A huge white ash (2 ft diam, 80 ft tall) along Starks Road (Rt 134) tipped from the side toward the river and across 134, stretching the phone cord to the ground and snapping both hot wires. We had winds probably gusting to 50+ from 10A to 2P on Monday in moderate/heavy RA, and the sustained blasts plus increasingly soggy ground led to the blowdowns. The only real cold came shortly after the 12" dump early this month, so essentially no frost in the ground. Total here was 4.21" here, while Farmington sites were 5+ and Temple's 6.01" is the highest I've seen. 2 inches or so mud on parking lots - Irving, McD, Walgreens this AM - looks like 3-4 ft of water at peak. Routte 2 was flooded in several places in New Sharon and Farmington; weeds caught in the bushes/fences show about 3 ft on that highway at peak. Some peak flow top-5s for the Kennebec drainage (K'bec records 1979 on, other 2 from the 1920s): Kennebec (N. Sidney) Sandy Carrabassett 1. 232,000 4/1987 51,100 4/1987 50,700 4/1987 2. 167,000 12/2023 42,900 12/2023 39,000 12/2023* 3. 113,000 6/1984 38,600 3/1936 35,500 5/2023 4. 113,000 5/2023 36,900 3/1953 31,600 8/2011 5. 111,000 4/1979 31,300 5/2023 30,800 3/1936 * The Carrabassett gauge hit that 39k at 7:30 PM on Monday with the river still rising, then had no readings until 3:30 PM yesterday with the flow at <15k.

That 39k flow on the Carrabassett was an error. 20 minutes later the site showed 30.2k, though still rising. Probably was 29k earlier. Still gusting 30+ but the heavy RA may be done - unless something develops upstream.

The Carrabassett set a new #2 peak flow of 35.3k cfs on May 1. When I checked the USGS website 15 minutes ago, the flow was 39k with no sign of the curve flexing. I doubt it will reach the 50.7 of 1987 but . . . The much slower Sandy was a bit over 20k. On spring RA/snowmelt events, the Sandy usually has the greater flow, but on flash flood events, the 'Bassett "wins" - by 4k last May and more than double the flow of the Sandy from Irene. Sad report from Windham - a man was clearing branches from his roof when a big part of a pine fell on him, fatally.

Raise them 50% then cut by 5%? Wind is significantly less than at midday but the RA continues.

Peak gusts here were 10 AM thru 2 PM, and I'm guessing they reached 50. As I was walking back from the "marooned" pickup, and back and forth with the chainsaw, I kept looking up with every gust. Got hit with some twigs and heard a big fir break near the yard, but otherwise no harm - except the most thorough soaking in many years. (The 40+ year-old rain jacket wasn't up to the task, plus the wind was ripping open the Velcro.)

Fifth big (3.25"+) since October of last year. The 2020 Grinch set a new Dec precip mark, broken by 3.25" on 12/23/22, and the current storm looks to finish 4"+. The local tree damage ranks with the 2005 TS and is far above any previous leaf-off event here, even Oct 2017.

Reported 3.62" to GYX at 3:45 with more to come. Also noted that 3 trees (and significant parts of 2 more) landed on a 200-yard stretch of our 0.4-mile road. (Must have sounded like "yard" not "road" to GYX, as the former is what's on their site.) Those 3 across the road were 2 big fir and one big basswood. The smaller of the fir is up against the wires and I left it alone, for now, but was able to clear enough of the others to allow passage. Unfortunately, both my wife and I were out when the bigger fir toppled, and our vehicles are parked out near the tar road. When things dry out, and if no one has attacked the on-wire tree, I'll probably walk down and take a whack at it tomorrow. My next-door neighbor has a big red maple crushing the rear corner of the garage and an equally big (15" diameter and 70 feet tall) black cherry that just missed the house but utterly destroyed the gazebo and messed up the service entry. Fortunately, she has a genny similar to ours. Wild River at Gilead peaked above 30k CFS - I wonder if it was running across Rt 2 at peak. It was down to 17.4k when I looked about 4. Both the Sandy at Mercer and the Carrabassett at North Anson are above flood and climbing, and the Sandy upriver at Madrid is at near record flow so the Mercer gauge has "miles to go".

Appledore Is. recorded a 71 gust a couple hours ago. Maybe the strongest winds in our 25+ years here, other than the 30 seconds of near svr TS in 2005. It managed to flip the tarp off the woodpile despite poles tied to both sides and heavy poles on top. Also untarpped the snowblower, but it can stay that way.

AUG gust 62 at 9 AM, probably approaching G40 here, which is quite strong for this sheltered area. RA 2.14" thru 9:40 with mod. RA continuing and more upstream. Lights have "almost" blinked, not enough to crash the desktop, though I'll be surprised if the generator remains quiet today.

The number of power outages in the state of Maine surpassed the Ice Storm of 1998.[1] True, but with caveats: --2017 caused far less infrastructure damage than 1998 - poles/transformers/wire, etc. --Comparing outages 2 days (or 2 weeks) after the events show there was little comparison by then. --The power companies, especially CMP, were doing a poorer job in 2017 than 19 years earlier. Lots of tree damage in each one, though mostly breakage in 1998 and a much greater proportion of uprooting in 2017.

That March '56 dump was about 3x bigger than any snow I'd seen (except 12/47 when I was 21 months old). Then 2 more big storms in '58, 2 in '60 and 2 in '61. Even Fort Kent couldn't approach that cluster of big storms. I thought that with 10" depth in early December this year, we were good to go. Alas . .

I first got interested in snow during the early 1950s. Not the best time for the NYC region. Average snowfall: 1943-44 thru 48-49: 39.2" The 12/26-27/47 storm might still be NYC's #1 had measurements been done the way 2006 & 2016 were measured. (Check depth changes.) 1949-50 thru 54-55: 14.2" Our NNJ home site had no storms of 10"+. 1955-56 thru 60-61: 34.5" Home site had 7 storms of 18-24" during this period.

Ancient history, but in our 13 winters (85-86 thru 97-98) in Gardiner, the worst for pre-Jan 1 snowfall was 1992. However, Feb-Mar were kinda nice, and the 92-93 total trailed only 95-96 over those 13. The exception that proves the rule? (If there's any such thing.)

It's been done, at least in a 1962 short story, "The Weather Man" by Theodore L. Thomas. (I have the story in a book, "Time Probe: The Sciences in Science Fiction", assembled by Arthur C. Clarke.) It describes technicians riding into the sun's atmosphere on "sessile boats" that are protected by "a thin film of gaseous carbon", with weather modification made by carefully aimed water drops. A fun read. I'm hoping that, like the last one did in the 48-hour run-up, the Monday storm will start edging east so that only BHB and point east will get the strong winds. I'd also like, if it has to rain, that temps would stay in the 30s here, also like last Monday.

True - we had 3.25" though about 0.4" was in SN/IP at the start. Thanks to the 22" with 2.41" LE on Dec 16-18, that 12/23 deluge only pounded the pack down to 12". The big difference from the Christmas Day Grinch of 2020 is that most of the 2022 rain came with temps in the low-mid 30s while in 2020 the heaviest rain came at low-mid 50s. There was only 4" OG going into 12/25/20 but even if it was 14", all would've gone down the Sandy River.

That 12/29-30/76 storm dumped 12" at our Fort Kent home, atop the ~2' from 26-27. We drove home thru the night from NNJ, hitting snowy roads in Mass and falling snow shortly after crossing the Piscataqua. Reaching BGR in S+ about 4 AM, we stopped at HoJo's for a big coffee and headed north. That coffee went right thru me and blessedly, the outhouse at the Medway rest stop had TP. With the temp in the low teens, using powder snow would not have been fun. Got to FK about 9 AM, and our blue Beetle was merely a white lump. Less than 5 minutes after parking the pickup, the NW backsides were blasting at 40-50 and visibility dropped to 50 feet in the gusts - could not see Pelletier Florist across the street. Very fortunate that those winds didn't come while we were between PQI and CAR. CON was 18° at midnight but the afternoon high was -8° at nearly 20kt sustained. Yeah, no thanks. KCON 251900Z 31018KT 20SM CLR M22/M33 A3015 RMK SLP220 T12211332 Had 9° at my 9 PM obs time and -23 the next morning with winds gusting 40+. Afternoon max was -16 and the 3" from the evening before was blowing a blizzard. !st CT Lake, with its 7 AM obs time, reported -24/-32 for 12/26. Outside of MWN, it's tied with Jan 15, 2004 on Mansfield for the lowest max I've seen in New England.

That type of sequence is very very rare in this region. I can't recall experiencing a system with even 1/3 of the respective P-types, and the only one other than 1992 that I can think of was the NYC "snowicane" in Feb 2010.

Been there in 1953 and 1998, the 2 storms 45 years apart, to the day. As a forester, I'd be fine if the next one didn't come until 2043. Nice flurry 7:15-7:30 this morning, briefly S+. Of course, while the Greens get 3-4", Our 0.1" coating has to suffice here.

5th greatest peak flow on the Sandy, 95 years POR. In NNJ we had about 8" capped by a bit of ZR as temp never got up to 32.

Farmington co-op had 10" come down on December 26-27/1969 (though it's a bit suspicious as no one else in the region had more than about 7"). Started with 15" SN then poured as temp rose to 50°. Was also BTV's top snowfall until 2010 topped it. Nice to see a sunny day, with modest temps.

Exactly the same as here.

Still 4" here, which will be white pavement when the temps fall. And still enough frozen on the driveway to bring out the wood-ash bucket tomorrow. Looks like the serious RA is done for us, some light stuff for another hour or 2.

Had 2.02" thru 7 this morning with some moderate RA since, and temp never got past mid-30s. Nearly all the snow washed off the trees after nearly a week of winter wonderland, but the 2' icicle is still hanging from the end of the gutter. Saw some 50+ gusts reported from BHB and a 53kt gust out on Mt. Desert Rock.

Some Maine sites I've tracked show about 3-3.5° rise during that time, most of it in the current century. However, picking 1970 as the start may overstate the longer-period rise, as those Maine sites were the same or milder in the 1940s than in the 70s. Still, 3°+ in 80 years is dramatic.

Light rain arrived about 3:30, somewhat thinning the fog, which was about 1/16 mile most of the day. Temp 33-34 as the inversion holds for the moment.