tamarack

Same here. 19-20 was rescued from ratter-dom by post equinox storms, with 3.2" on 5/9 for the exclamation point. 20-21 is 2nd lowest here, beating only 15-16, and last winter was on the border between lousy and ratter. The height of frustration came in Feb 2021, when a couple of NNJ sites had more snow in that month than we had for the entire snow season.

A tornado is the one weather event for which I'm content to never see in person.

So far, this month is challenging 2007 for warmest January - 11.4 AN thru today compared to 13.0 AN in '07. That year things turned cold on 1/14; from that date thru Feb 24 (6 weeks) only one day got above freezing, and that only 33°. Jan 14 thru Mar 9, 55 days, ran 9.1 BN and there was still another 46" snow to come. Haven't seen anything like that progged for this winter.

Of course.

1.2" from 0.10" LE, with continuous light (or very light) snow from 9 AM to 9:30 PM. Small storm, big change in the scenery.

"All politics weather are is local." The northern 2/3 of Maine had significantly AN temps last month, +5 here, +6-7 from CAR north.

My Chesterville source has the live bait sign out, and Flying Pond isn't all that deep and it's tucked into the hills, so the ice probably catches there earlier than places like Parker Pond or the Belgrades.

Very light snow began 9 AM, several hours earlier than forecast - probably the lower level wasn't as dry as expected. Still light and about 2/3" so far and one more area of echoes now overhead. Woods look really nice, though yesterday's hours of FRDZ made for better catchment o the twigs. This morning at my first look at the bird feeders, I noted a downy woodpecker clinging to the lowest of the containers and not moving at all, with tail and beak touching the metal. Made me wonder if it had died there, but later there were 2 blue jay gluttons there and no feathers on the ground, so I guess the little hammerer had decided to sleep next to breakfast.

Flying Pond looked okay on Wednesday - no one fishing but saw a number of auger holes made since the big deluge. Will try there tomorrow, first ice fishing since March 2021 thanks to the 21-22 A-fib experience. Other than the Fort Kent years, where one needs a power auger, snowmobile and ice shack (I'm 0-for-3), I've never skipped an ice fishing season since I was about 10. Light SN since 9, about 2/3 inch new. Doesn't take much to pretty up the woods.

My neighbor, who generally runs the local club's groomer, is probably about 60 - just a pup from my viewpoint but symbolic of what you said. Both of the big December storms were disasters for the sledders - first one dumped trees all over some trails then the big rain wrecked the snow. Neighbor ran the groomer the day after the deluge to even out things a bit, but the subsequent warmth has made the trail unusable. His 12/24 run half-pulled a 200 lb (I thought) rock on a high point. Because that rock was positioned to damage the drag, day before yesterday I walked out there with sledge and crowbar. I got the rock loose and partially lifted but that only showed me that 200 was actually more like 400 and I had to give up. Hope he can use the partially elevated position to safely push that rock to the side.

Terrible in the Aroostook River Valley, but the trails south and west from Fort Kent should be oaky - looks like 12-20" above 1000'. That's well below average but still plenty to groom. Jackman/Pittston Farm also with that 12-20. Not great but not yet a 2006 disaster, IMO.

Mid 20s with freezing drizzle and a raw wind. Enjoying my 0.2" new - at least it covers most of the crud atop the old pack.

Back in the day . . . We lived in Fort Kent 1976-85, and in that whole time there were 1.5 days called due to weather. The full day was due to a blown forecast - it was snowing hard during the late evening but the progged 1-3" probably led the relevant people to think that it would soon quit. Instead, we had 18" in 9 hours and the next morning all the available plows were opening roads rather than school parking lots. Six weeks later there was 6" new at sunrise but the forecast was "only" 6-12 so school started as usual. By noon another 6-8" and it was puking snow, so they sent the kids home after the half day. All the buses made their runs okay, even to Allagash (30 miles, mostly flat) and Winterville (25, with some brutal hills). We finished with 26.5", still tops in my experience, and we averaged over 130"/year during our time there. I'm confident that Fort Kent calls a lot more snow days now.

Mid 20s here, but the 2-3" forecast verified at 0.2" of mostly IP. Abbot, about 50 miles to the northeast, reported 2.6", tops so far though the poster from Monson (one town north of Abbot) hasn't checked in. We'll probably get only the north fringe tomorrow, if anything. Better to be fringed by little events and be near the jackpot on bigger ones like mid December.

True. If we were to get a storm on, say, Jan 20 (This is NOT a forecast!!) with temp here of 25/20, that's a 9° AN day.

Agreed on the 3 crummy winters. 2019-20 was heading for a ratter but was rescued by 22" after the equinox (including 3.2" in May) to finish at 95% of average. The next winter finished ahead of only 2015-16 and last winter was 20th of 24, a bit behind losers like 2001-02 and 2011-12. Warmest 6 years (and coolest 2): 44.25 2010 44.00 2021 43.91 1999 43.44 2006 43.19 2012 43.03 2022 39.45 2019 39.99 2007 Average is currently 41.72.

Maybe my eyes are too slow, but to me it looks like the 40° isotherm stops at about Haverhill, MA

Still 7" at the stake, and GYX has us getting a surface-brightening 1-3" overnight into tomorrow. Stats for 2022: Avg temp: 43.03 +1.3 Both max and min were +1.3 Precip: 48.38", a mere 0.36" BN. Thru August we were 5" BN with 9 of the past 11 months BN, then 4 straight AN months made up nearly all the deficit. Snow: Calendar '22 had 78.8" while 21-22 had only 67.1" Though 2022 was pretty meh on average, it had its moments: Jan 22: -29°, tied for 7th coldest (6th at the time) records back thru May 17, 1998. Jan 27: -30°, tied for 5th coldest. May 14: 90°, earliest to reach that mark, and hottest for the year. Oct 14: 3.30", 7th greatest one-day precip. Dec. 16-18: 22.0", 3rd greatest snowstorm. (24.5" 2/22-23/09; 24.0" 12/6-7/03) Dec. 23: 3.25" precip, including 2.84" RA after SN/IP start, tied for 8th greatest and unseating 12/25/20 for December's greatest one-day precip.

Coldest month on record for northern Maine - Fort Kent averaged 9/-19 that month - and Farmington's #2, slightly behind Jan 1982. We missed or fringed the big Feb storms but at Gardiner we had 38" in January and 93-94 was tops in SDDs among our 13 winters there. The storm of 1/17-18 was the only time I've seen light towers; at the time (about 11-midnight on the 17th) we had heavily rimed SN+ at about 5° while RKD had 40s, RA and howling SE wind. The BGR-Newport area had 8-10" followed by 1/2-3/4" RA then temp plunged from 42 to -14 in less than 24 hours. I-95 in that section had immovable ice chunks that made it dangerous to drive more than 20 mph and would loosen one's fillings at any speed. BGR hit -24 on the 20th and even the big graders could only scrape a teeny bit off the top of the icebergs.

As long as 2005-06 isn't repeated. Some guy from Corpus Christi, of all places, called the manager of Aroostook State Park (just west of PQI) in mid Feb, asking about the sledding. The manager was a bit embarrassed to reply that it was crummy there but halfway decent father north in the St. John Valley region. I'm not sure if a guy from south TX could comprehend that northern Maine had poor snow in mid Feb. (The most sledding I've done, by far, came in a 2-day management plan field trip in mid March that year. Conditions were "okay" in Fort Kent and down to Eagle Lake and points west, very tricky crossing Deboullie Pond (a bit of new snow over slush, good for trapping sleds though plenty of ice beneath the slop) and really sketchy on the day 2 ride to Perham, outside CAR.)

That's all I do with the Stratus in the cold season. A few years back we had a pre-Christmas 2"+ RA followed by lows in the singles while we were out of state, and while the 5-gal bucket I substitute, with its slight taper, survived (with the bottom bulged downward), I've no confidence that the no-taper gauge with harder plastic would've withstood the sequence. (The bigger bucket is better at accurately catching the snow, too, though with over 8" and/or with strong winds, it fails as well.

Many years ago - early '60s - a kid about 10 y.o. in our small community was hit in the chest by a softball bat that slipped from the batter's hands during school recess. He was knocked to the ground, got up and said he'd go to the nurse but only went a few yards before collapsing. The teacher ran to him and saw blood coming from the mouth, and the boy passed in a couple minutes, long before first responders could arrive. Autopsy revealed that the heart was in that part of the cardiac cycle when a sharp blow could cause rupture to heart or aorta.

That's possible, especially for the first 3 sites. The Farmington observer, Dennis Pike, took over the responsibility in 1966 and is/was well into his 80s, so I wonder if he became unable to continue and nobody picked up the torch.

And the engineers think the glass is twice the size of what's needed. I was pleased to see that Wednesday's super torch has dimmed to a candle for points north of southern Maine. Should the low 40s verify rather than the earlier mid 50s forecast, the ground will remain white as temps slide down toward normal.

Digging into long-term records has been one of my hobbyhorses. However, some of my favorite sites seem to be going offline, very disappointing. Here are some from my area: Site Start of obs Last records Bridgton Nov. 1, 1893 March 2019 Lewiston Jan. 1, 1893 Temp 11/02, All data 5/10 Gardiner Sept. 1, 1886 May 2021 This is the only Maine record for March 1888 that I've found, with an 8" paste dump on 3/12. (ASH had 28") The site I've mined most deeply, Farmington, has but 11 months missing from Jan 1893 on, and only one (March 1970) since 1909. However, the obs were "M" for Oct. 16-30 and no reports yet for Nov/Dec. Maybe Oceanstwx or others at GYX know if that site is cooked.