tamarack

50° here, coolest of the month by 3°. Can we reach the 40s tomorrow morning? (IZG 49 today) Yesterday's 0.26" leaves the July total at 3.78", 94% of average after 2 months of very AN rain.

Light rain arrived about 5, some bright echoes upstream but seem to be sliding to our south. Forecast is a modest 0.1-0.25" except in TS, which are very unlikely here. I do like the significantly cooler air coming in the window, however.

I preferred the old one, so I could brag up the -101 at our Fort Kent home on Jan 18, 1982. The -72 from the new one lacks cachet. Nice peak of summer day here, mid-upper 60s dews and mid 80s, nothing spectacular.

BDL has had lousy snowfall totals the most recent 5 winters. The previous 5 averaged AN despite having 2015-16 in its midst. However, most recent 10 were only 89% of average while those winters ran a couple inches AN here.

I'd nominate August 1988 as a contender.

Well, less worry than at your locale, but prior to last winter the previous 3 had lots of taint. (Including "Give it up. 'Taint gonna snow.)

Thru yesterday, the month was running 0.3° above July 2010, as of now the record holder (POR 26 years). The average max is only +1.3 and 9th highest while the 60.0° average min is +5.5 and 1.3° above 2020, currently tops. MInima for the "win"

As I've said before, little 'quakes, little 'canes, little tornados, big snowstorms - a combo I can live with.

Works great for our Vacation Bible School, too. Last year we sweltered in HHH. This month has included a half dozen or more flood/flash flood watches, some warnings, but unless we get >1/2" before Tuesday, July will finish BN for rain. May/June had fewer watches/warnings but a far greater dowsing.

Two period forecast was 1-1.5" (3/4-1 day, 1/4-1/2 evening), verifies at 0.11". Sun peeking thru some holes in the clouds. Since July 2 that's been the trend here. After 16.5" in 64 days, we're now busily dodging anything that looks like serious wx. Maybe we cash in on Saturday; if not, looks like low PWATs next week. At least we get some real CAA for the first time in many weeks.

I can count on my thumbs the severe TS I've experienced since moving to Maine in 1973, though a 3rd one hit our Fort Kent home while I was in the woods 35 miles to the west, where we had a sprinkle with the gust front. Neither of the two were at our place - one was in the woods about 20 miles south of MLT and the other was at the Farmington office. Lots of close ones, though, especially 8/30/2007 when several thousand acres were defoliated - some partially debarked - by hail 6-8 miles SE from our current home.

That FF-warned storm crossing the NH/Maine border may hit Jeff for some fun, while the north-south split gets this area for the 3rd time today. Maybe we reach 1/4"?

BGR had dews near 80 in August 1988. Only got to 77 at PWM but I think that's still their tallest dew on record. Not up to 0.1" yet after 4.5 hours of showers, getting a bit darker but cloudy and 70 isn't a prescription for real convection. Our zone is barely in the flood watch, barely out of the severe watch. The strongest echoes stayed south this morning and are just north this afternoon. Sometimes I hate it when my guesses verify.

Cloudy with low 70s says little/no severe here. Light RA began about 10:45, has barely gotten the ground wet. Brightest echoes look to be starting the north-south split that leaves Rt 2 in between. Back end of precip maybe 2-3 hours away, after which the swamp arrives - forecast high is 10° above the current temp. Soon enough to gin up something interesting?

There's a calculus in colder climes between increased precip and higher temps, and which will have the stronger effect on snowfall. Places like DCA are probably south of the "flex point", which I'd guess is currently in the NYC/BDR region (and edging northward). Farther north the greater precip wins more often than it loses, as seen by 21st-century snow totals in many New England sites. Winters like 2022-23 might be a preview of the situation 20+ years from now.

Might be less expensive than fixing it the usual way. It’s 3-4 days lol. A pattern change it’s not I thought that day 8 thru day 14 was a full week. I'll never understand the New Math.

3.41" here. After today that will be exactly on the average for July 1-26.

We got more rain yesterday than the Jay-Dixfield drowner the day before - 0.04" vs. 0.03". Since the all-day rain on July 2, every precip forecast here has underperformed. Dare I say that the garden needs water?

With less than 1/4" in the past 8 days and none today, I may need to water the garden - for the first time in 2 months. This after 2 days with ginormous downpours within 20 miles of here. (And given the recent outcomes from the most recent 4-5 heavy rain opportunities, we may well skate into next week's sunny with low dews after dodging another couple of chances.)

We reached 35 on Feb 22, but that Sunday afternoon was 32+ for less than 4 hours. Next highest max was 28. The month had 23 subzero minima and the other five were zero, 1, 1, 4, 5. Average max/min was 16.5/-10.0. (Oddly, 2/15 in Fort Kent was only their 2nd coldest February, behind 1993.) 2nd coldest month here was Jan 2004 with 15.2/-4.9. Groundhog Day 2015 had a max of -1 with 7" powder and the next lowest max was 5°. Jan '04 had six days with max between +1 and -8, and the 2nd coldest max, -7 on the 14th, actually failed to get above -11 during the afternoon. Hence the lower average max.

That's tougher than Maine's forester license exam, which is 4 hours morning and 4 more afternoon. During my 10 years on the license board, I proctored 4 exams, about 40 applicants in total. Not one put down their pencil before the end of the morning segment (biology and measurements) and only one finished the PM segment (management and policy) as much as 30 minutes before time's up, with 4-5 others handing in their exam 5-10 minutes early.

Feb 2015 was strange in several ways. It's the coldest Feb by 1.9° at the Farmington co-op (records back thru 1893), but that month's lowest of -18 doesn't even approach the coldest 20 Feb mornings. Feb 15's coldest maxima of 4° also fails to breach the coldest 20. It was the almost total lack of warmth throughout the month that set the record, rather than any record-shattering cold blast. Dec 1989 is a bit similar, with the month mean coldest by 4.3° (how many SDs below avg is that?) but its coldest mornings tied for 10th place. Dec 89's coldest mean temp was -7; Dec 30, 1917 had a mean of -23.5 (the co-op's coldest daily mean by 3.5°). In other news, those poor people in the southwest part of Franklin County got hit again by downpours. Some roads haven't been repaired from the June 29 5-6" cloudburst and now another 3"+ deluge hits. Though not as widespread as the earlier storm, yesterday's event took out several roads in Jay and East Dixfield, perhaps some only recently repaired. We listened to distant thunder and got 0.03". Despite all the rainy days and AN number of days with thunder this year, we get missed by anything beyond what happened yesterday. For the year, we've had only one strike closer than 5 miles and that was about 2.5. (Our thunder-averse Lab mix would like things to stay that way.)

Have not eaten cottontail since moving out of NJ but have had the occasional snowshoe hare. The ones I've eaten were tasty but considerably tougher than cottontail (unless I was getting only the older animals). When we were at our daughter's and family's home last May, they had a cottontail nest under their blackberry thicket - looked like 6 leverets after crows had killed one incautious critter that stayed out on the grass too long.

Likewise here, as you know. I can recall temps occasionally still in the 80s at midnight, but without a good hygrometer I had no way of knowing dewpoints. I watched probably thousands of Tex Antione's forecasts and never recall Uncle Wethbee quoting dews.

I wonder if the observation site was part of the anomaly. No paved roads then but perhaps in the built-up (and treeless) section. The initial obs site at the Farmington co-op had a major effect, with half of the 14 triple-digit highs being recorded during their first 5 years (1893-97) - also no pavement but lots of multi-story brick buildings. Since then, only 1911 with 5 of 100+. 4 in NNE's greatest heat wave, June 1944 and Hot Saturday in 1975 reached the mark. 12 hundies in their first 19 years, only 2 in the next 111.