tamarack

Another thick frost this morning, and the PC/50s forecast is down the tubes - solid gray with a few drips and low 40s here. Probably 70% leaf drop right around the house, but the general area is only a bit past peak, with some gorgeous views.

Above the tank would probably be the place, as its top is usually within 12-18" of the surface. The leach field might actually enhance growth.

That looks like a lot of boat for anything smaller than Sebago.

Agreed, but seeing <1/2" at my place and 10"+ less than 20 miles NW is right in character. Too early for the 2nd-act SNE to PWM dump, however.

Sugarloaf was blowing out the mice earlier this week.

I had no vertigo issues at the time I did the back-and-forth on Knife Edge. Just months before, my carpenter job included walking on 2x4 upper plates, where a fall toward the house was 8 feet to plywood, and a lot farther to dirt/rocks if I fell the other way. (50 years later I shiver a bit just writing this.) On my eastward leg I had to go around a party of 5 climbing Chimney Peak, the steepest part of the trail, and one member of that party was terrified. From Pamola I could see weather coming in so needed to move quickly back to dad on Baxter Peak. That party was coming down the east face of Chimney, and the poor lady was in the worst spot, plastered to the rock like a starfish and not moving. I stupidly went off trail to the right/north, a route that should not have been done without ropes and pitons, but God (often) protects fools.

The moment I saw a picture of the Knife Edge my reaction was "gotta get there!" My first (of only2) climbs of Katahdin came in early August 1973, our first year in Maine. My in-laws were visiting, and since dad had walked his scout troop over most of the NJ/SNY AT, the only logical trail was the Hunt, so he could hike the northerly 5 miles. He was content to wait on the sunny top while I skipped across the Knife Edge (no skipping at Chimney Peak) since I had to go both ways. From the summit there was a near total undercast - one hole revealed Chimney Pond and the other just some forest on the opposite side. By the time I got back there, visibility was under 500 feet and we hit rain just before dropping off the Tableland.

I tried . . .

One of the worst for fall color, but the wood is one of the best for both heat value and rot resistance, also adds nitrogen to the soil.

Thanks again. Since you listed the 22-23 table alphabetically with numbers first, Ray is at the top. Does that mean his string of BN winters is coming to an end?

When we lived in Fort Kent every fall had a double peak, maple/beech/birch in late September then aspen 7-10 days later - their yellows made a nice contrast with spruce/fir dark green, and even the gray sticks of other hardwoods added to the palette. Speaking of sticks, white ash is 90% bare while the maples/birches are 50/50. The few oaks will wait for the other trees to de-leaf so the leaves atop the litter will be oak-rich. September was only a fraction of a degree BN with only the one frost on the 30th, but the colors are about a week earlier than average. Maybe that's because the 2nd half of the month was 3° BN after a mild 1st half.

25 on 10/3 and 26 on 10/4. I suspect that mixing may prevent dropping below that during the even colder airmass this weekend.

Five? That's one more than here, which is surprising. We had frosts on 9/30 and 10/3-5 (mid-20s freezes on 3,4) plus the 33° morning with frozen dew on the car roof, 9/17. Our average and median for first frost is 9/18 and average frost-free period is 117 days, median only 113 due to extra-long ff days in 2011 and last year, 156 and 163 days, respectively. This year's 133 was 3rd longest. Shortest was 88 days in 2002, thanks to both a 6/4 frost and our earliest first frost on 9/1. The next year it was only 98 days and no others failed to reach triple digits. Fort Kent was quite different, of course, with the cooler 1976-85 period added to climo. In 1976 we lived along the St. John and valley fog held off the frost until 9/26 and allowed a frost-free period of 138 days. Next highest was 110 and the average without '76 is 95 days, and that's ignoring the light frost of 7/1/78. That year had the shortest ff period at 68 days and including 7/1 it would've been only 44 and would've cut the non-valley average to 92 days. Average first frost at our in-town home was 9/5 and 3 days later at 970' in the back settlement.

I'm one color drier than shown on those maps. 4/1 thru 10/5 we're at 85% of avg. 7/1 thru 10/5, 95%. However, Sept had 130% of avg (and none yet for Oct).

We had cloudy but zero rain here for the past 7 days. Fine with me after the AN Sept precip - allows the leaves to fall naturally rather than being smashed down by heavy rain.

My numbers above show the historically low precip for NYC during 1963 thru August 1966, but that town was merely near the center of the MA/SNE drought. IIRC, the reservoirs serving NYC were down to a few weeks of available water when Sept 21, 1966 delivered a 5.53" deluge, which marked the drought's end though no one knew it until subsequent months continued with normal/AN precip.

Dec 2000 led into a good-to-great winter. Maybe "another ratter" refers to a different winter?

1965 was the nadir year, driest on record for all 3 SNE states, also DE/NJ/PA. (NY record remains in the Southern Tier, a much drier climate, but the 26.09" for NYC in 1965 is 6.9" less than 2 [1964 tied with 1881] and that #2 is closer to #40 than to #1.) 1963 was on record pace until the 4.5" event in early November pushed it into (then) 4th place. For the NYC area, summer 1966 was the most critical. Thru August that year was running just 3/4" above 1965 and met summer '66 had been both the driest and hottest on record - latter topped in 2010. 1961 was BN and '62 the 20th driest, POR 152 years. The cumulative precip deficit was like nothing else in the MA/SNE records.

Folks in the NNJ community where I grew up were posting on FB yesterday about multiple "explosions" - can't blame them too much. In my 20+ years there I can't remember siggy thunder during a low-50s stratiform rain event.

In the early 1980s I was manager of Seven Islands' St. John River District, and can recall a meeting with Gilles Tardif, CEO for the Maibec mills. We were looking for ways to sell spruce-fir that was dying due to spruce budworm, at a time when nobody wanted lumber. Gilles commented that what the fed was doing was indeed painful, but that it was the only way to get out of the stagflation mess. (And 7-I/Maibec found a way out of our respective messes as well.)

Or maybe "Randolphwx"?

Farmington co-op whiffed on the KU but the 10" dump on Jan 13 brought the pack to 40". Three rainy thaws later, there was only 8" left by Jan 28. Their records date back thru 1893 but they've only recorded snow depth 1940 on, and there's no other January that comes close to 1996's 32" drop. Edit: Next biggest January drop was 23" from 1/4/2008 thru the 12th, 34" down to 11". Unlike 1996 with its 4"+ RA in 3 thaws, 2008 was mostly compaction, with 16" of the decrease coming on Jan 8,9 with little RA (0.12") but highs of 61 and 52. The other difference is that 1996 pack only got back to 23" (after the 11" storm of 3/8-9) while 2008 peaked at 42" on 3/1 as the SWFEs kept rolling in.

"Only" down to 26 this morning, and less frost than yesterday. Colors are peaking here - yesterday morning featured constant soft rustling as white ash leaves tumbled thru branches on the way to the ground. At least 50% leaf drop on that species, 25% on maples, oaks changing color but little leaf drop. No pear trees here but had a partridge "talking" to me from one of our apples, only 10 feet from me until it spooked and flew off.

In the Mickey Mantle bio "The Last Boy", it's stated that Mantle almost certainly tore his ACL when he stepped on an OF drain cover during the 1951 WS, probably long before ACL surgery was available. A person in a non-athletic vocation might've just shrugged it off and would have no issues, but the stresses and strains of a world-class athlete are different. Late in his MLB career, Mantle had stated that he never again took the field without pain following the injury.

We dodge that issue because our oil furnace is also our hot water supply. Also, our main thermostat is only 15 feet from the Jotul, so setting the temp at 60-62 doesn't mean much in the living room.