tamarack

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.

Maybe the converse of 6/09? We had zero precip June 1-8 that year, but from 6/9 thru 8/3 we averaged 6 rainy days a week, with 17.5" during that period. where we at for temp departures so far? 6/1 and 6/2 WAN of course, but since 6/3 it's been pretty shitty, I assume most sites are BN for the last 5 days 6/1-2: +11.3 6/3-7: -7.8 June 1-7: -2.4 Today looks to be the 6th straight with maxima <60. Avg max for 6/8 is 69.

At some point I'd like to acquire that latter book. Having seen the data for southern and central Maine, that 1952 blizzard ranks among the state's fiercest. It remains PWM's 3rd greatest snowfall and apparently was far more intense than the 1979 and 2013 snowfalls that were greater. I've read "Their Finest Hours", the account of the barely believable rescues accomplished after two large cargo ships were broken in half off Cape Cod in that storm. (My only caveat, a tiny one, is that records for places like CHH don't support the blinding and depth of snow described in the book. Can't find the CHH data I'd seen earlier, but nearby spots had a few inches of slop amidst about 3" qpf. I've no doubts whatsoever about descriptions of the winds and sea conditions.)

The Peshtigo account had the fire coming from the west. Sending sparks 220 miles due south is rather unlikely. It would be like a big fire near PWM being responsible for the Nova Scotia fires. The Maine fires of autumn 1947 are chronicled well in "The Week Maine Burned". My only criticism is that no maps were included. The big southern Maine blowup on 10/24/47 was triggered by a classic dry CF that brings an abrupt 90° directional change of wind direction (SW to NW), making the relatively safe flank of the fire into its unstoppable head. The CAA also came with very strong winds, described as 50+ mph. That "East Brownfield" fire covered over 100k acres and torched that town and one other. A couple days earlier, the "Kennebunkport" fire was only stopped by the Atlantic, though flying embers set fire to a small island about 3/4 mile from the mainland. PWM temps. No measurable RA had fallen so far that month and only 0.08" since 9/22. 10/22/47 70 37 10/23/47 83 35 10/24/47 59 26 10/25/47 65 20

The Chicago fire was spread by howling winds. 220 miles to the north, those same winds brought a firestorm down on the lumber mill town of Peshtigo, killing about 1,500.

The Nova Scotia wildfires are close to towns. If that's also true of the P.Q. blazes then human activity is the probable cause. If they are away from civilization and in the true boreal forest, more likely it's lightning. The boreal black spruce holds its cones for decades and fires bring the cones down to the ground, opening them so the seeds can sprout and create a new forest.

47-41 yesterday, shades of early June 2015. Reported 1.09" to cocorahs, finally getting some siggy rain after the "tenth-a-day" regime. Now for some warmth to allow the nicely watered veggies to grow. Maybe Friday.

I gave away or sold once all but one of the dozen or so snappers I caught in 1960-61. The exception was a 37-pounder, weighed by my stepping on the scale with and without the critter. Chopped off its head and waited an hour, and there was still enough nerve action to have a claw scrape my hand. Got the still-beating heart out at hour 2 and it continued to beat for another 2 hours. I'd read in a sporting mag that cleaning a turtle was no more difficult cleaning a chicken, perhaps because the basic process is similar. So is chopping down a 3-inch tree and a 3-foot tree. Never figured out how to properly cook the meat - today it would be in the crockpot (or pressure cooker if I had one). That meat was TOUGH! Even the white meat tenderloin along the spine between ribs and shell.

Undoubtedly a lady looking for a sunny spot with easy digging to lay her eggs - looks like 20-25 lb critter. The biggest one I caught back in the early 60s weighed 45 lb and would've barely have fit in that tote. I certainly would not wish to get one like either the above or my biggie chomping on my finger, but unless the jaws were right on a joint, I doubt the turtle could've bitten off the finger. Might've mangled it such that the surgeon had to finish the job. I've seen a big snapper put some respectable dents in a broomstick but it didn't break the stick.

Looks like about 1/2" in the gauge since 7 AM, a welcome change from the itty-bitty RA experience Thurs-Sat, even with temps hanging in the 40s. For the 2 days ending 7 this morning I've reported 0.26". Of 100+ Maine sites reporting to cocorahs both days, only Westmanland (Aroostook) with 0.28" was close.