tamarack

Teens with SN/SN+ all morning at CAR/FVE. Nothing happening here since the 10 AM TS.

Spooked our pup (as usual) but only 0.10" RA. However, almost all came in 5 minutes - inch-an-hour RA quite uncommon here in Feb.

Things started with a bang here as well - brief heavy RA and only the 4th time we've heard thunder in 25 Februarys.

Beautiful day on the Flying Pond ice - warmed up while opening holes then took off the heavy jacket before 10 AM and only put it back on for walking back to the pickup at 2:45. Brought home a nice brookie. Also had 4 hits at the same hole in 10 minutes, one miss and 3 small pickerel, 13-17". Caught one, re-baited and didn't get 10 feet from the trap. Missed that one, got another shiner and had hit #3 immediately. That was the 17" fish, bait survived and as soon as I had it down to the proper depth another small pickerel grabbed it. That was at 1 PM and was the end of the action - okay as the bait bucket was empty.

Latest forecast from GYX has 30/17 with snow showers for next Wednesday. Sure, it's D7, but that's the nearest thing to weenie friendly I've seen from there since last month. (Though some of us were excited by the Arctic blast earlier this month.)

Is that 225 (88-89") season to date or total? If std, your average is a lot higher than I would've guessed.

0.9" with 0.007" LE overnight then mood flakes 7-11 this morning. Trees were nicely frosted early, though that all disappeared when the sun began peeking thru the clouds after 11. We've now had 4 snow events this month that total only 5".

VD massacre for the GYX staff. Our area was blizzard-warned for the 24 hours before the storm began. When their afternoon AFD chopped forecast snow from 18-24 to 12-18, I wondered what was going on. By the 11 PM news, the massive bust for all but the coast had become obvious. 1.5" here (4th event that season to verify at just 1/8 of what would be needed for verification), 12"+ southern Maine coast, 25" at 20' asl in Machias.

Haven't seen the biggest lakes this winter, but Long Pond (Belgrade) is iced over an it's one of the later medium-size lakes to freeze, due to its depth. Are you surprised it's that thick given how mild the winter has been The previous time I was there, in mid January, ice was 9-10". Since then, the pack increased from 11" to 20"+ and other than Feb 1-4, temps have been mild. I had thought that the snow cover would've kept that one Arctic blast from increasing the ice depth more than 4-5", if that.

Ice at Flying Pond is 17" thick, a couple inches more than I'd guessed and 3-4" longer than either of the skinny pickerel I caught today.

In the mid 20th century there were efforts to have the kids speak only English at school, and the French were often subject to discrimination outside of the St. John Valley. In recent decades, the French (especially the Acadians) have been celebrated.

Tallahassee reached -2, FL's coldest on record. Cape May had 34". For several days in Feb 2021 it looked like Mt. Arlington was going to eclipse that total but I think that QC showed some measurement irregularities. In a way I was glad, as it maintains the delicious irony of the state's least snowy locale having had the greatest snowfall. Back to GTs and NNE, PSM is about 140 driving miles from here, probably not much different as from Tolland but farther from the folks in the northern Greens. For an NNE-only (due only to distance from SNE) locale, maybe North Conway?

Back in the 196s, the small NNJ lake where I usually went ice fishing always had safe ice for the Jan 1 thru mid-Feb ice fishing season, except for 1965 when post-Christmas 60s took out what had been 4-5". Refroze a week later. This year the red ball flag, sign of safe ice as determined by knowledgeable lake association members who tested thoroughly, has not been hoisted at all. I don't think it's the first such winter that happened. I'm planning to visit Flying Pond (on the Vienna/Mt Vernon line) on Monday, and expect to find ice thickness of 12-15". Most winters it would be 20"+ by now.

Eastern Aroostook looks like the Midwest but with more hills, and the Downeast accent is rarely heard there. The St. John Valley is surrounded by decent size hills, but the major difference is culture, as 90%+ of the people have French ancestry, some from Acadia and some from Quebec. One frequently hears French spoken, though it's significantly different from that spoken in Paris. West of Route 11 is mostly commercial forest land with paved roads becoming gravel logging roads a few miles west of that highway. There are significant hills in that area, with Deboullie probably the most rugged area - elevation tops out near 2000' so far less than Greens/Whites but also far more remote. Winter. The latitude matters…northern Maine is a different area. Our 1973 move from NNJ to BGR, 390 straight-line miles and nearly 4° latitude, meant a significant change in climate. Three years later we moved to Fort Kent, 170 miles and 2.5°, and that climate change was at least twice as much as from the earlier move.

12", according to the snow table.

Post-equinox snow pushed 2019-20 from ratter to near average, and included the 2 biggest snowfalls, 10.3" on 3/23-24 an 8.5" on 4/9-10. Then 3.2" on 5/9, over 90% of our May snowfall since moving here in 1998.

Wet snowfall plus mild day. Probably still 20" pack there, and more on the trails thru the woods. Unless runoff has cut thru some trails (which I doubt up there), riding should be okay.

Not here. Both March and April had AN temps, and the 2-month total of 10.2" was less than half of the 21.3" average. CAR did better, with Mar/Apr total of 30.3" compared to the 28.9" average.

Had 2.2" of 7:1 snow in 3.5 hours before the change to rain about 8:15. Sometime later (maybe at the end?) there was a tenth of IP. Storm total 0.69" with 2.3" total with 0.36" LE. Currently near 40 with the sun trying to break thru.

We got 4.6" from the northern edge, better than the 1-3 forecast. Then 2/11 added 8" of 31-to-1 feathers with temp in the singles, followed by the winter's 2nd 21" dump on 12-13. That brought the pack to 47" and the morning forecast on 2/15 was for 12-16" - easy 50s pack with an outside chance at 60" on the way. not. As first flakes were falling, the afternoon forecast dropped to 6-10, which was eked into verification with a 6.2" total, post-storm pack 46" as the wind did some scouring near the stake. Then Feb 17-28 ran 11.5° A, chopping the pack by half. Our rescue Lab mix from TX arrived on Feb 4, perhaps never having experienced snow, then saw 45" in her first 2 weeks here. (And was even more terrified by the pi-day blizzard. Like all Labs, she loves snow now.)

The perp was a co-worker with the council member, and later took his own life.

In the past week-plus, two NJ state council members have been murdered while in their parked cars. Apparently, they were not connected.

Same here, except we were 9.2° AN last month. The rest of Feb would need to run 15-16° AN to duplicate Jan's departure. It would take CAR in 1981 to approach that.

That storm ranks with the most exciting weather events I've experienced, though as a forester it had a dark side. Fortunately, more than 95% of BPL's Lands Division was north and/or west of major damage. Some southern Maine state lots were devastated, especially Hebron, but the only large tract to suffer heavy damage was Tunk/Donnell, east from Ellsworth. On of the most ironic effects from that storm occurred in NNH, where Gorham had RA, MWN was setting warmth records, and areas 1500-2500' asl were hammered.

That month had 4 monster storms. We whiffed on 1 and 4 but totaled 3 feet from 2 & 3. Had we batted 1.000, it is to dream.