tamarack

IMO, April 1982 ranks in the top 5 for anomalous wx events in the Northeast, a step behind March 1888 and Sept 1938 but up with Sandy and the Octobomb. Other contenders are Feb 1978, April 1997, May 1977, Jan 1998, Dec 1992, etc. It was the most powerful blizzard of my experience, with only Feb 1961 even close. It takes some special winds to have a day with 15" snow, temps in the teens while losing an inch of pack: 4/6/82 24 0 0 0 27" 4/7/82 17 10 1.10" 15.0" 26" 4/8/82 23 13 0.14" 2.0" 25"

It's sad that NYC, having its own crummy winter, had more snow in February than most Maine sites.

Mid 30s here. Might've seen catpaws during the heaviest if I'd been awake and in the pickup. 1.36" 7P-7A plus an inch or more as pack went from 6" to 3". Sandy River may get above flood stage but probably not even half the 42,700 cfs reached last December. I remember when our seasonal snowfall used to correlate with the amount of precipitation we got. Worked just fine here in January, nasomuch in Dec and not at all this month.

About 12" on Flying Pond, usually 18-20" by early March and >2 feet in colder winters. About 20 years ago I encountered 32" on North Pond (Belgrades) - had to chop away some of the surface ice to get clearance for the crook in my hand auger. Drove thru Belgrade Village today, and the visible part of Long Pond is about half open.

Hundreds of geese in the fields, Farmington/New Sharon yesterday. They may know something, since they wager hundreds of flying miles that the ground will be open enough to feed them. If they're wrong, they're in trouble. Monday at Flying Pond I saw one lone goose heading north - scouting?

Temps thru 3/5 Season 22-23 23-24 NOV +3.6 -2.4 DEC +4.8 +4.9 JAN +9.0 +4.5 Mildest of 26 Januarys FEB +1.2 +6.4 MAR 1-5 +4.3 +10.2 Snow 87.1" 55.8" SN since 2/1 32.6" 3.7" Pack 3/5 32" 6"

Nothing taller than 2700' north of Baxter, but there's probably halfway decent snow at 1k+ west of Rt 11 and north of the Realty Road. Pack is down to 7" and dropping. Earliest that it's gone to zero/trace is 3/14 in 2006; we may challenge that date this month. The adventure I had on Flying Pond yesterday (noted in the banter thread) was due to the pond's rise and resulting bathtub ring around the shore. That will only get worse this week, eliminating access on most ponds south of Moosehead. The Sandy River from Farmington and downstream is essentially clear of ice, also the earliest I've seen ice out there.

Ice fishing is cooked, at least on Flying Pond, unless we get several near-zero mornings (Unlikely). Only about 1/2" RA but perhaps the same in snowmelt, raising the pond level 9-10", resulting in 5" water on the ice by the landing and a bathtub ring of water 1/4 mile away where I usually fish. The big rock adjacent to the island, where I like to sit and wait, seemed okay until my first "dismount", when a 2' by 4' chunk broke away. Took off one boot and stuck that leg into the 18" water on the narrowest gap rock-to-island, got my other boot on the edge of the steep bank, but something went wrong when I attempted to pivot on the wet leg, and I fell off to the side, once again proving that a 12" boot is inadequate in 18" water. Drained what I could and stock it out another 2 hours (ice away from shore 11-12") with zero action, but the sunny 50 instead of the forecast 40-45 and cloudy made me antsy about getting off the ice without further drama.

It's sad, perhaps, but I agree. Last Dec 18 was indeed awesome, even as I was thoroughly drenched (felt like beyond skin deep) as I was chainsawing trees off our road, all having fallen from our woodlot. Each time I heard the roar, I stopped cutting and looked to see if anything was falling toward me. I've not seen the east half of our 80 acres except next to the road, but on the west half at least half the big fir were destroyed - makes me wish I'd painted those for the 2013 harvest.

A non-cold comment on the cold season thread - We had 3 days, Dec 6-8, with temps 10°+ BN. In the 85 days since then there's been exactly one - Jan 19 - and 30 days of 10°+ AN.

It would have to be a long-duration event like late Feb 1969 or what hit NS earlier this year. Pinkham Notch had 77" from that '69 dump and Long Falls Dam (Flagstaff Lake) had 56".

Up here it was whiff-boom-boom-whiff, with the 2 booms totaling 36.4". Still dreaming about hitting on all 4, might've threatened my record for snowiest month anywhere, 61.5" in Fort Kent, Dec 1976.

In late November of 1996 we tried to drive up to Paradise but were turned around at about 4,000' (Going to the Sky Bridge) as we had neither 4WD nor chains. At Longmire (~2700') there was mix and 3-6" OG. We found a turnout maybe 100' elev below the bridge and there was nearly 4 feet OG, with great snowball-fight texture. Paradise, at ~5500', probably had 6 ft+.

Found ~12" (3" gray, 9" black) on Flying Pond, about 10 miles south of my place, but almost no action last Tuesday. Maybe try again Monday. In an average winter there would be 18-20" this time of year. It’s actually pretty amazing. Summers are dry and beautiful with long days and light until close to 9:30-10pm in high summer. You’re within 90 minutes of epic snows in winter with the occasional snower into the city. I've only been there (actually near Olympia) twice, both times for Thanksgiving week, and there was rain every day both times. Only about 4 of the 14 days were stormy all day; the others had occasional showers - every cloud seemed to spill a little. Some say that it only rains once in November, from the 1st thru the 30th.

The forecast posted above has 25-31 then 48-54 for today-tonight. The 24-hour record (76" IIRC) might be in danger. Good news for those concerned about peaches and pears and what not. Unless an early spring includes another mid-May freeze.

I've seen 0.3" ice in early April - once, on Mile Hill 400' higher than my location - but 3/4" that late is amazing. The vast majority of Northeast ice storms I can recall were much earlier in the cold season: Nov 1921: mostly in New England Jan 8-9, 1953: The hilly country N and W from NYC (>1" ice at our NNJ home) Dec 11-12, 1970: NNJ, 3/4" ice Dec 17-18, 1973: Major damage W CT/MA Dec 13-14, 1983: 3/4-1" N. Maine Jan 8-9, 1998: 1.5-2.5" ice, terrible (also Jan 6-7 in PQ) Dec 11-12, 2008: 2" ice? Centered in ORH area Jan 1994? Maybe the 18th as that cold (in Gardiner, the light tower event) storm had a strong warm tongue - 5° at home, 40s with SE gales at RKD. I'm sure there are others.

2nd pic, too many pixels for both to fit on one message.

Wreckage of a small red pine plantation thanks to December 18th, about 1.5 miles from home.

End of the February flop . . . It's the first February here to be solid F's for both temp and snow. Avg Max: 34.4 +5.0 Warmest day: 48, 28th Mildest avg Feb max, 1999-on Avg Min: 14.4 +7.8 Coldest day: -6, 20th. Ties Feb 2013 for most modest cold day. Mean: 24.4 +6.4 2nd mildest, behind 2010 Met winter mean: 23.80 Mildest, replacing the 23.64 last year Precip: 0.95" -2.02" Greatest day: 0.35" on the 10th, all coming in a 10-minute TS. Driest February, eclipsing the 1.04" in 2012 Snowfall: 3.7" -18.2" Greatest day: 2.1" on the 16th. 2nd least snow (3.3" in 2006) Only 19% (0.18") of precip was frozen. Note: If the cold front that arrived late on 2/28 had come a mere 8 hours earlier, the month average would've been 23.7 and met winter 23.59, leaving 2023 as mildest.

CF arrival was sudden, with a brief downpour and some house-creaking gusts, probably near 40, but then things quieted to 20s-30s gusts. Nary a flake. The late (10:50 PM) passage and slow temp drop at first resulted in it still being 43° at my obs time and thus the max for 2/29, even though it may not reach 20 this afternoon. Had the front come thru 8 hours earlier, the February temp would've been nearly a degree colder than what it actually will average.

Still 12" here (with 4-5" SWE) but that may be cut in half by the end of next week.

In NNE some of the hottest days come with modest dews (hard to cook all that water), often in late spring/early summer on W/NW winds before the humid SW flow carries the heat. Hottest temp at CAR is 96, in May 1977 and June, 1944 and 2020.

GYX has an hour-by-hour chart of winds for many sites in its CWA, and for our area the strongest winds come with CAA and continue into tomorrow evening. Only ~40 gusts compared to the 50+ in Dec, but they're from the NW and may pick out some trees partially tipped by the stronger SE winds back then. Bad winter for the woodlot.

Tops here since moving from Fort Kent, and only 95-96 in Gardiner and 00-01 here are even close.

Meh. 1st half of April was indeed nice. 2nd half had one sunny day, 9 cloudy ones, and segued into a downpour that caused the 4th greatest peak flow on the Sandy River (relegated to 5th in Dec). May had a mid-month dry spell but the month was way AN for RA, then June 1-18 had only a single day w/o measurable RA.