tamarack

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.

The real AN was farther north. While GYX/PWM were about 2° AN, CAR/Fort Kent/Van Buren were 6-7.8° and had +/-12" from the mid-month storm. Not often when the foothills are a clear jack - even Rangeley/Jackman had 18"/11.5" while foothills totals were generally 20-28". December stats: Avg temp: 27.2 +5.0 and 3rd mildest of 25 Decembers Avg max: 34.8 +4.0 Mildest day, 49 on the 30th. Avg min: 19.6 +6.0 Coldest morning,4 on the 11th. The 2 milder Decembers were the only others that failed to reach zero or below Precip: 7.16" +2.61 and 2nd only to 12/2003. 80% came in 2 events, 2.41" from the 22" storm of 16-18 and 3.25" from the 12/23 deluge. Snow: 23.3 +4.4 and the first AN December since 2017. The 12/23 event began with 1.2" of SN/IP and there was a tenth on the 1st, slightly adding to the big dog.

D for temp (5° AN), B+ for snow. The total is 123% of average, which normally would be a B- month (would be A or A- for the season) but the 22" mid-month dump is the 3rd largest snowfall since we moved here in spring 1998.

As Paul Harvey would say, "You can run but you can't hide." For the past 10 or so years I've been attracting deer ticks by the hundreds (not all at once!), some of which got their ugly mandibles into my hide, but with no ill effects. Then last month I was feeling extra blah, and 2 days before Thanksgiving had a spell of confusion and blurred vision that had my wife thinking "stroke". At the ER she spotted a tick latched onto my back and that led the medical folk to test for tick-borne disease. Fortunately, anaplasmosis is bacterial and quickly (3-4 days) yielded to doxycycline. Probably the infecting tick had hit me a couple weeks before while I was vainly waiting for a deer to walk by. Hoping your C19 runs its complete course in just a few more days, at most.

Would not mind if the warmth and RA blows out the ice jam in Farmington Falls - if that is maintained (and augmented) until cold wx arrives, it might cork the bottle of the spring ice run. 49/32 yesterday, 21° AN. Slightly cooler this AM and probably little/no sun so more like 44/29 today for +18. Another 20+ AN Wednesday?

Very few hornet nests here so no data. However, in Fort Kent snowfall varied inversely with nest height. (Except for the huge nest in a small yellow birch sapling near Allagash - bent it over to nearly crochet wicket shape, so one would get a different read from a July obs compared to one in September when I saw it. )

Will finish about 5.1° AN here, 3rd mildest of 25 Decembers and 3rd straight AN month, but also AN for snow thanks to the big dump 2 weeks ago. CAR at +6 but GYX a modest +2.5.

2° max at Central Park that day - next lowest is 4°, reached twice. One was on the same date in 1880, the other on Feb. 5, 1918, just 37 days after the record. The period Dec 29, 1917-Jan 4, 1918 is by far NYC's coldest week, with the average day at 9/-4 which was 31° BN.

3 straight days with snow! About 20 flakes Monday, only 10 yesterday but an actual dusting today.

Many years ago (1955-56) in NNJ we had a calm and slightly below zero night about Dec 20 that put 2" on the 95% of our lake that had been open water. A high schooler was skating all over and saw that I'd walked out on the 5% of older, thicker ice to test the new stuff's thickness. He skated over to scold me for ruining that beautiful ice (one small hole on a 50-acre lake). A small snowfall a few days later was wiped out by some 40s, then it was dry and cold for 6 weeks. It's the only time I've seen black ice a foot thick or more.