tamarack

Nice. Still 23" here and it's solid, at least 30% water content. Last 2 events totaled only 1.6", leaving the Jan total a mere tenth shy of 30", which is about 10" AN and 3rd most for January 1999-on, so no complaints here.

With only that 100+ we had no problem consuming them long before they would go by.

Along with blueberries, my favorite fruit. Our NNJ home was within 10 miles of (and about 500' higher than) several peach orchards. We'd buy a peck and I'd eat 6 or more every day.

I planted a Reliance peach within days of moving to my present location in mid-May 1998. For its first 3 year it would triple in size then bottom-of-winter temps of -24 or -25 would kill the top half, followed by super growth (but no blossoms) the next summer. Winter 2001-02 never dropped below -12, there was no dieback and we picked 100+ sweet fruit of about tennis ball size in August. Jan-Feb-Mar 2003 included 12 days with minima between -20 and -29, a few of those with significant wind, and the tree was essentially dead. A small sprout appeared from below the graft in summer '03 but all was still after 03-04 (Jan 04 would've killed the tree just as thoroughly as winter 02-03. I just said thank you Lord for giving me one crop before demonstrating that our frost-pocket microclimate was too cold (on the cusp between 4A and 4B) for peaches. Median for winter's coldest is -25 and we may approach that Saturday morning, maybe Sunday as well but without the breeze.

Old scale. Though -84 on the current scale is awesome anyway. The -34/35mph at our Fort Kent home at sunrise on Jan 18, 1982 was -101 on the old, -72 on the new. The -29/40mph at 9 the previous evening felt even worse. worst part of the 94 cold snap was it flipped warm. -25 at dinner to rain the next day and 40s then back below zero. Allagash went from -45 early on 1/27 up to 44 about 48 hours later. Brain-cracking numbers for CAR below: Jan 26 -13 -32 0 0 5th coldest max and tied for 2nd coldest mean. Jan 27 5 -23 0 0 Jan 28 45 -1 0.69 3.3 Jan 29 43 -3 0.30 0 Jan 30 -2 -20 0 0

Other than at Fort Kent, where we had 3 wire-to-wires in 9 full winters, I can recall only 2, lifetime - 1960-61 in NNJ and 2007-08 here in the foothills. (1947-48 probably qualifies but I was too young to understand.) 1975-76 only misses because March had snow 1" BN.

On Jan 17, 1982, the WCI was -70s, about -100 on the old scale. Probably will remain 10-20° above that mark up there.

Month's high was 46 on the first. Since then, only the 41 on the 18th has gotten past the 30s. Currently maxima are running 5.7° AN and minima are 12.8° AN. Clouds

Minus 60s? Saddleback may be the worst because it faces NW. Sugarloaf is NE to E, SR NE.

Fort Kent is a different world from any other place I've lived. Five coldest mornings: -47 Jan 17, 1979 ("Only" -40 on the border next to St-Pamphile, PQ.) -42 Jan 12, 1979 -42 Dec 22, 1980 -41 Jan 12, 1976 11 days after we'd moved up from BGR. Welcome to the St. John Valley! 9-13 lows: -33/-24/-36/-41/-37. Only 1/13 got above zero. -39 Jan 11, 1979 In the 10 Januarys we were in FK, there were 5 days with minima >32. Ironically, all 5 came in the month noted thrice, above.

Jan 1994 was the coldest month on record for a number of northern Maine sites. CAR had 10.3/-11.7 for their only subzero month and Allagash had 9.7/-19.9, average -5.1. Only made it down to -25 at my (then) Gardiner home while the Farmington co-op hit -39 for their coldest temp in their 130-year POR. The quick thaw late that month also produced the greatest diurnal temp range I've seen in the Northeast - 66° as Clayton Lake went from -24 up to 42.

In January 2009 our frost pocket got down to -36 (dwarfed by Big Black River, of course) and needing to be in Augusta the next morning, I ran the Ranger (and the Subaru for good measure) for 10-15 minutes at 11 PM and again at 2:30 AM. No problem starting at 6 AM for my commute - money for gas was well spent. Learned that trick from my first supervisor for Seven Islands' Fort Kent district. His scout troop, along with numerous fathers, had a January campout at Dickwood Lake, SW from FK and a couple miles from power. He did the multiple warmup act and when the morning dawned at -37, he was able to jump vehicles off his easily started pickup. I think the coldest temp here with significant wind was -23 in Jan 2004 - the day with an afternoon high of -11. (In Fort Kent, we had -34 with gusts 35-40 in Jan 1982. I had a company-owned Chevy Luv pickup, and even with a good heater hose warmer, the critter barely started. Had 2-mile visibility in tiny grain snow that morning, too. Wind blew all day and the max was -14.)

Fortunately for the deer, they had mostly wide open access to food and travel thru 40% of the critical period. Stake is at 23" here after yesterday's not-quite-an-inch, and there's probably 7"+ SWE, so the sinking depth for little hooves is less than with a usual pack of that depth but with half the water. Some big fluffy storms next month and the deer would be in big trouble. Had maybe an hour of sun early then the clouds rolled in. This month will easily be our warmest January and may be the cloudiest as well.

It was - the Big Black River site is in a valley (duh!) a bit downstream from the South Road bridge about 5 miles from St-Pamphile, PQ. Lots of fake cold -40s along N. Maine rivers, also at K40B. Made it to -36 at my frost pocket locale.

Gardiner numbers: 27th 11 -21 T T 28th 45 -1 1.61 2.5

That is amazing. Maybe you had clouds on the 11th and 22nd, when I had -3 and -8, respectively. Those are my only subzero mornings so far; January averages 13 and the previous low was 4 in 2002.

Likely get a good roll.

I'll take the 10 BN, haven't seen that since 12/11 and only twice since October 10th. The only day with more than 12° BN since last February was on Fathers Day.

Of course, 10 days is different from 300 years.

We had short intrusions last January, giving our frost pocket lows of -29 and -30, only the 6th morning in 25 years here to hit -30 or lower. The last extended (at least a week) cold snap came in Dec 17 into Jan 18. The week 12/27-1/2 averaged 2.4/-22.1 with a max of 7 and min of -31, running 29° BN. Extending that to 15 days, 12/25-1/8, the temps were 8.7/-14.1, only 21° BN but including a pair of storms totaling 21" and a max for the span of 22 during the 13" dump on 1/4. Fort Kent wx

Missed that one - BDL's max was 5°, tied with Jan 8, 1968 for 4th place. In addition to Jan 1957, they topped out at 3° on 1/4/81 (CAR max -16, coldest on record) and 4° on 12/31/62. AT my NNJ home that day the temp was 5/-8 and the wind is either #1 or #2 (Nov 1950 the competitor) for strongest I've experienced, with large bare-limbed oaks ripped from semi-frozen ground. I think BDL failed to reach zero the afternoon of Christmas 1980 after a low of -13 but the 17° at 12:01 AM blocked that; I once read that BOS only reached zero that afternoon. Norfolk CT, with 7 AM obs time, reported a max of -9 for 12/26, their coldest max by 3°. First Ct Lake, also 7 AM obs, had a max of -24 for 12/26, and apart from MWN that plus Jan 15, 2004 on Mansfield are the coldest max's I've found for New England.

BDL's coldest max is 1° on Jan 15, 1957. Most recent of 19 maxima <10° came on Jan 14, 2004 and 2/14/2016 topped out right at 10°. At my present location, coldest max is -8 on 1/15/2004 but the previous day's max of -7 was set the evening before at my 9 PM obs time - afternoon high was -11, with a sharp breeze. Most recent subzero max is Jan 6, 2018, a high of -6, with wind.

If it was the 2nd or 3rd Arctic blast, those temps could easily be doable, but I can't remember when a first invasion got that cold. The past 30 days are 9.7° AN; to get days of 20-25° BN it will likely need more than one surge from N. Canada.

For a winter that ranks 4th of 24 for snow, 14-15 was surprisingly frustrating - "Of all sad words of voice or pen, these are the saddest, 'It might have been.'" We had 3 warned events, Nov 2, Dec 7-9 and Feb 14-15, that each verified at 1/8 (or less) of the forecast ranges' lower end. Cumulative total of the 3 forecasts was 26-42" and we got 3.3". Then the late Jan blizzard that promised the grandkids in SNJ a 12-16" dump, up to twice as big as any storm they'd seen, produced 1.5" that was all gone 4 hours after accumulation ended, a 4th "verified at 1/8th". Meanwhile, the most powerful January storm to hit my residence in my lifetime ended 12 hours before we returned home. All over but the shoveling.

Exactly the same departure for our temps.