tamarack

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.

Farmington had slightly (2") BN snow. They have "M" for the 1st day of the big mid-March storm, but their pack increased 13" that day. Using that for 3/14 (and the qpf fits) makes it a 23" dump. Both CAR and Fort Kent had about 20" above their averages, with the mid-March event dumping 29.0" at CAR, their #2 storm, topped only by the extended storm of 12/25-27/05. We lived in the back settlement then, 3 miles SW from downtown FK and 450' higher than the co-op, and had a high-density 170" total, starting early as Nov-Dec had 16"+ qpf and 73" SN. The 18.5" surprise (forecast was 1-3) of Feb 5-6 briefly brought our pack to 61" though it was 59" by the time of my next obs. Then we had 2.5 weeks of thaw that dropped the pack to 35". It inched up to 42" before that 3/14-15 storm pushed it to 65" with a 26.5" slam, biggest snowstorm and pack of my experience. Probably had 16"+ in that pack, and on 3/15 we went up to Big Twenty Twp to retrieve a disabled snowmobile. While there I cut a long stick, marked it in 10" increments, and found a depth of 80" after ramming the stick thru the frozen layer left by a mid-Dec IP/ZR storm. (Crust from that would carry a bull moose, though it was likely softened a bit by the Feb thaw.) Temps: Nov about average, Dec 2.7 BN, Jan 1.5 BN, Feb 8.1 AN, Mar 6.3 BN. In 9.7 winters in Fort Kent, only 1.5 days of school were lost to snow. The poor forecast Feb storm caused the plow crew to sleep in and school was canceled because the parking lots were buried. At decision time on 3/14 there was 6" new with moderate snow and 6"+ to come so the buses ran as usual. Then the storm grew up with 3"/hr and 14" by noon and the kids were sent home then. AFAIK, there were no glitches in the bus routes despite the 30-mile run to Allagash with HS students and the very hilly 25 miles to Winterville with kids of all grades. Probably more than you wanted to know.

I think he was seeing precip inches close to his SN total that month, too.

Had 5.3" but by late morning when I started snow clearing it was down to 3-4", and it took about twice as long as did the 10" I cleared on Monday. Of course, that event had 0.66" LE while this one totaled 1.16" with probably 0.9" or more still in the glop.

Getting fringed by the early month frigid storm was just the start. Thru the 15th we were running 5° BN, with 3.46" precip and 2.1" SN. Rest of the month was dry and near normal temp.

Moving this slop was about as bad as expected and there's another hour's work. Stuff was too slippery to clog the chute but so heavy that the machine could only toss it 5-6 feet at best, forcing me to toss much the same snow twice. Currently mostly cloudy (sun peeks) with mid 30s, down a few ticks from the max. Today's temps will be 12-14° AN, added to the 9.1 AN for 1-25.

Can't quite match that, but Jan 2014 had 3.77" here, 120% of average, plus temps 3.5° BN (11.1° mean) while getting only 5.1" SN, lowest of 25 Januarys. For the Farmington co-op it was worse - 4.3", ranking 129th of 130 Januarys. Sometimes even the best hitters swing and miss on a meatball hanging curve.

Feb. 2015 was a bit odd in that it set few daily minima records while setting many all-time records for the month, some places for any month. At the Farmington co-op, 2/15 is coldest by nearly 2° but never came closer than 5° to tie a daily record. No/few record cold mornings but just never got mild - the above co-op had 22 days with subzero minima and the mildest morning was 7°. At my frost pocket the number were 24 subzero lows and 5°. The month had maybe 3 hours of temp >32, reaching 34 on 2/22 while the next highest max was 30 three days later.

Fair enough. The long-term average for that part of Jersey, north Morris and south Passaic/Sussex Counties, is about 40" but the period 1956 (when my quantifiable snowstorm memory begins) through 1971 (when I moved 10 miles SE and 500' lower) had a 55-60" average, with both 60-61 and 66-67 cracking the 100" barrier.