tamarack

Finally floated my little one-seat Old Town on North Pond Monday, brought home 2 pike, total weight 6-7 lb, 4 fish stew dinners.

Had to replant most of what I put into the ground on May 29 - foolishly thought the next few days would be warm enough to give the seeds a big push. May 30-June 2 avg high was 82 peaking at 89, about as expected. Unfortunately, the avg highs of the 13 days since was 61 and all but one had rain. Replanted cukes, spag. squash, carrots (that was a surprise) and the 1st row of green beans failed; out of 40 seeds planted, one came up. 2nd row was planted Monday - we prefer beans fresh and uncooked, so a row per week into early July is the strategy. Beets, arugula, pac choi were okay and the tomatoes/peppers within the black plastic area are holding their own but not much more than that. Hoping against a 2009 redux.

My 2 strongest TS in 25 years here came in June (2005 and last year). However, the tree-stripper hailstorm 5-10 miles to my SE came on August 30, 2007. Just had a garden-variety TS go thru, 1:25-2, maybe 1/4" RA. Closest strike was 2.5 miles, nothing else within 5.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Added to the sadness is that, in early January, Cool Spruce wondered whether that stalled retro-bomb might wreck winter - he was spot on. Unfortunately, not long after that came the stroke that took him off the board and eventually (I assume) took his life. We were kindred spirits about trees and forests.

09-10 was the most frustrating winter for me since coming to Maine, with only that first Maine "winter", 73-74, even close. It was a disaster for Maine except for the mountains. Three KU's pass without a flake here and the 4th dumps the most awful 10" slopfest imaginable - 4:1 mashed potato that wouldn't even stick on branches, just splattered to the ground. Then that KU's 2nd Act was 1"+ RA at 33-35° (on NE winds) while NYC has their 20.9-inch "snowicane". BWI recording 7" more snow than CAR might be a 500-year phenomenon. The final act, following the mildest FEB-APR period here, was the 22° low on May 11, causing easily the worst frost damage I've ever seen. No apples that year. Officially dubbed the "pork roll, egg and cheese" chase. Taylor ham! (And that's the classic NJ breakfast.)

I've seen oak defoliation from Farmington to Phillips and also Rome/Belgrade. Also saw some on our NJ/PA trip last month, mostly NNJ - no frost damage there. just spongey moth.

My NJ records are lost. Central Park had 9.30" but the major Agnes flooding was farther west. Wilkes-Barre might've recorded that 9.30" in 2 days - Susquehanna went wild. Edit: Checked CLIMOD and it looks like that area had "only" about 4" or so from Agnes. There had to have been more someplace upriver to cause the destruction at W-B.

Every other day would be nice. It's 14 of 15 so far this month. No downpours, though - month's total of 3.19" has yet to equal May first's 3.25".

We had a stupendous seed crop on white ash last year. I expect to see places with the ground covered by its seedlings.

If 100% of the ash trees are truly dead, I think EAB won't survive there as I know of no other hosts for the critter. However, even super-susceptible species like green ash may develop sprouts from stumps/roots as the top dies, providing potential host trees. On another front, one unfortunate facet of the chestnut blight fungus is that it apparently can persist on oaks without harming them, thus keeping inoculum present for any sprouting or planted chestnuts. (And horse chestnuts are a totally different genus/species, and not susceptible to the blight.)

Our town is now in the "alert" phase. (And EAB is only four towns away since some numbskull moved a few of the critters to the WVL area.) I'm all but immune to poison ivy; my only reaction came after a morning of ripping the stuff from behind our church parking lot where kids would play. Had a very mild case on my right forearm above the latex glove, a spot that had certainly been in contact over and over during the 4 hours of fun I'll not intentionally challenge browntail moth hairs, but perhaps my sensitivity would be lower.

That's good advice. Also, some maples (red maple in particular) will have a huge and early seed crop, with the full foliage only filling out after most of the whirlygigs have departed. I'm not very knowledgeable on Japanese maples and their phenology.

Humid maybe, but when did 79-81° become "hot"? Maybe if it's on April Fools' Day. Upper 50s and cloudy here. Had 0.04" overnight to mark the 13th day this month with measurable precip. (Most for any month here is 23, in both May 2005 and July 2009. Only 2 other months have reached 20+.)

Precip 8 AM thru 2 PM: PWM, 1.15" My place, 0.02" (and only a sprinkle since then.)

-2.5° here. Yesterday was June's only dry day. Different vibe than last month, which had 9 days with measurable precip and 6.35". June's 11 days with measurable (thru yesterday) has totaled 2.82". June 1-2 had highs 89/83, followed by 8 days with max averaging 56, and warmest since 6/2 is a modest 73.

Tied for 3rd sunniest of 25 here and close to 2nd but nowhere near as sunny as May 2022.

My guess is that photoperiod is the basic driver, but the timing can be modified somewhat by air/soil temps. Spring phenology was very different in 2020 than in 2010, by about 3 weeks. (Until the mid-May freezes scorched a lot of new growth in that earlier year.) That said, freaky mild temps in winter can cause bud break, especially in landscape plantings of shrubs/trees not native to a particular area or hardiness zone.

Patches of oak defoliation are showing up in our area, most notably along Route 27 in Rome going into Belgrade Village, but also some in Farmington and Strong as well. Typical spongey moth work. Only sprinkles this afternoon though we had a little RA overnight to keep our everyday-rain record this month. Maybe breaks the string tomorrow if the next system tarries a bit.

The Google Earth I have is dated 2006, some 2005 (April that year, so everything is white). I'm sure the cutting has expanded. The dominant tree there is black spruce, which holds cones and some seed for 10-20 years. As long as no fires run thru the slash to kill black spruce germinants, the forest will return, though on the skinny soils of the Laurentian Shield it may take 100 years to produce a spruce 6-7" in diameter.

Glad you added the lol. Fire is the dominant factor in boreal (taiga) forests in both hemispheres. A warmer, moister atmosphere leads to more lightning, which may shorten the intervals between stand replacements and possibly to some modification of species mix. How this, by itself, would contribute to atmospheric CO2 is beyond my ken. The more frequent stand-replacing fires would add more CO2 (and particulates) to the air, but CC might also increase growth rates in the forests of the North.

The major forest replacement function in the boreal forest is fire. Black spruce is the dominant species and where the current fires are burning there is also a significant component of jack pine. The latter species bears serotinous cones which remain closed until exposed to heat, either from fire or by being laid on the ground by clearcutting. Black spruce holds some unopened cones for 10-20 years, also to be opened by heat. The current fires are larger than usual due to the extensive lightning, but overall that forest type is a fire-driven ecosystem.

We ran the heat pump for cooling for a couple hours on 6/2, been running the woodstove ever since.

Today makes it 9-for-9 this month, had 0.31" overnight, month total 2.50". (Or 0.75" less than May 1st). Hoping the peppers/tomatoes don't mildew.

My 3 most recent cocorahs reports totaled only 0.22" despite that DZ/lgt RA was occurring about half the time. From 12:50-1:05 this afternoon we had 0.3" - more in 15 minutes than in the previous constantly wet 36 hours. Another 10-15 cents since then.