tamarack

CON touched 80 on 11/2/50. 3 of the SNE big 4 were low 80s, ORH 79. Upper 30s this morn here, temp rocketing upward, sun is warm rather than mild. HIE reached 31, might get to 75.

Could be worse (better?) When the kids/grandkids lived in central IL (DEC), one of our visits included New Year's Day 2012, and they were still harvesting greens from their cold frame on Jan 3. (And the front yard sycamore still had some leaves.)

In SNE. It was mostly a suppression session here (snowfall nearly 2 feet BN) though the consistent cold made for decent retention - along with killing my peach tree.

During Thanksgiving week in 1996 we visited my SIL and family who then lived near Olympia, and drove into Rainier National Forest. At Longmire, ~2700' elev, there was mix, mostly SN, and 3-6" OG. We headed toward Paradise at 5500' but couldn't get past 4000 (at Going to the Sky Bridge, IIRC) because our minivan had neither 4WD nor chains. We drove back about 1/2 mile and maybe 200' elev, found a wide place to park and got out for a snowball fight - snow there was 3+ deep, made me wonder what was at Paradise.

Forecast for Paradise Lodge on Rainier: Today Rain. The rain could be heavy at times. High near 39. Wind chill values between 23 and 28. Windy, with a west wind 31 to 36 mph, with gusts as high as 55 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts in excess of 4 inches possible. Tonight Rain and snow before 2am, then a chance of snow. The rain and snow could be heavy at times. Snow level 7900 feet lowering to 5200 feet after midnight . Low around 23. Wind chill values between 8 and 18. Windy, with a west wind 33 to 40 mph, with gusts as high as 60 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible. Saturday Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 25. Wind chill values between 5 and 10. Breezy, with a west wind 24 to 28 mph, with gusts as high as 45 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible. Saturday Night Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 23. Wind chill values between 9 and 16. Breezy, with a southwest wind 23 to 28 mph decreasing to 11 to 16 mph in the evening. Winds could gust as high as 34 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 9 to 13 inches possible. Sunday Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 26. South wind 5 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 4 to 8 inches possible. Sunday Night Snow likely, mainly before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 19. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible. Forecast for farther up the mountain was 45-51" today and 30-36" for tonight, etc.

'Fraid so. Temp was 3.6° BN, precip 120% of average, and the 5.1" snow was 26% of average. Thru Jan 14th there had been 2.1" snow, 3,29" precip (and another 0.17" RA on the 15th but that day's +18 temp dragged the month average to just 4.6° BN), and temp running 6.2° BN. Those are near-impossible trifectas. Farmington co-op was even worse for snow, with just 4.3", ranking 129th of 130 Januarys there and only 0.3" more than the "champion", 1992.

07-08 is my only winter in which DJFM all had AN snow. The next year was AN for the met winter months but died with the early March underperformer. 00-01 was probably #2 for wall-to-wall, with all 4 cold months having BN temps, though Jan was BN for snow. The record March snow resulted in a 4' pack on 3/31. 60-61 had the good stuff all packed into 8-9 weeks, beginning 2nd week of Dec and was pretty much exhausted after the early Feb blizzard. It also had a classic ENE-type awful April, cloudy, cool and wet. 92-93 and 04-05 were half winters. The Farmington co-op actually was down to just traces OG in late Jan and reached 56" (tied for second deepest) after the Superstorm. Early winter 04-05 was cold but the 1st event of 4"+ waited until Feb 10-11, when a 21" dump (with some thunder) launched a 31-day stretch with 60". 93-94 had the best retention of the 13 winters in Gardiner but missed the MA/SNE storms in Feb. Both 13-14 and 16-17 were excellent for NNE though Januarys were poor (17) to awful (14, with BN temp, AN precip, least snowy January).

We have both downy and the larger hairy woodpeckers (and once a fly-by of a pileated), and too many of the piggy blue jays, along with smaller birds and a fat gray squirrel that hasn't been able to reach the feeders lately - they're on clothesline type of equipment and we've cut some of the nearest branches. Every so often Grayboy/girl will climb the now-trimmed lilac and gauge the jumping distance required, but without trying.

Our feeders get mostly suet or suet-y seed cakes, so the weak-beaks can get swallowable food on site. However, if there's one chickadee on a feeder and another comes in, there's lots of fluttering and one one stays more than a few seconds.

The insecticide applications back in the '70s and early '80s likely had little effect on the duration of the outbreak, but they kept a lot of trees alive long enough to get to the sawmills. An estimated 15 million cords were lost to budworm in Maine, and another 15 million harvested earlier than planned, with a significant portion of the latter having died before being cut.

During the early 1980s when the spruce budworm outbreak was killing fir and spruce in Maine, there were bazillions of those birds as their population exploded due to all the extra food. Hundreds would gather on/near the road in front of the Allagash school and swerving to miss them often resulted in more impacts than if one drove straight, thanks to how the birds reacted. Unfortunately, evening grosbeaks were only a response to budworm rather than a control. They are one of the most gregarious birds around - my dad once counted 38 of them shoulder to shoulder on his 2-level feeder in Woodsville, NH. He probably never saw more than 2 chickadees on the feeder at once; our smaller feeders are "this town ain't big enough for both of us" when it comes to chickadees.

Nov. 1989 was classic, though 3.5° AN thru the 19th doesn't scream "torch". However, 10.2° BN for the rest of the month was certainly abrupt, along with the thunderblizzard of 11/21. And Dec 1989 continued the icebox, running 13.7° BN before warming a bit on the 31st. That day ended a 43-day run of BN temps. The avg snow for Nov here is a shade over 3" so if we see none, It's not a telltale for the remainder of winter. Average for Novie here is 4.7", median 2.5". 2006 had only traces while all other years November had some measurable, topped by 23.4" in 2018.

October 2022 in the Maine foothills - probably the nicest 10th month of the 25 years here. Avg mean: 47.1 2.1 AN Oct 1-12 ran 4.3 BN and 13-31 was 5.3 AN. Avg high: 59.2 3.8 AN Mildest, 72 on the 6th; coolest, 45 on the 10th Avg low: 35.0 0.4 AN Coldest, 23 on 11th, 29th. Mildest, 57 on the 26th, latest in season for 57 or milder minima. Precip: 6.41" 0.75" AN 5.95" came on just 3 days, 3.30" on the 14th (greatest calendar precip in Oct), 1.51" on the 18th and 1.14" on the 26th Sept-Oct - both months with AN precip, first time that happened since Nov-Dec 2020. Snow: No traces recorded This past October featured 16 sunny days, 4 more than in 2017 and 7 more than any of the others. A mild and sunny mid-fall with AN precip that reduced the year's deficit to 2.15" and with 93% of that precip packed into just 3 days, plus average to above color - that's hard to beat.

50° with TD 10?

Especially in Fort Kent. We only saw bare ground during December 2 of 9 years, 1979 and 1982, but clouds and bare ground on Dec 10 meant nearly dark by 2:30 even though sunset was more than an hour later. Early summer sunsets after 9 PM made up for it.

"Ginny" (1963) repeat?

By 11/15 the average temp here at 390' elev is 42/24 and dropping 0.3-0.4° daily. Might be 36/22 at 1500 in Stowe on the 15th and 32/20 at 2500.

I didn't catch this facet but the guys on Football Outsiders did. In the 1st halves both this week and last, every time the QB was under center it was a run; every shotgun a pass. Against the Bears they did a complete reversal for the 2nd half, which CHI immediately caught on, with disastrous results for NE. Hard to run a competent offense when you're telegraphing run or pass to the D. At least they varied a bit from that stupidity in yesterday's 2nd half.

Last 2 days: 57/23 and 62/26. Upper 20s this morning so another 30+ diurnal swing in the works, not bad for late Oct. Today's PC breaks a string of 4 sunny days, almost unheard of at this time of year. The month has had 16 sunny days,4 more than any of the previous 24 Octobers here - ironic for a month with AN precip.

At our first house in Fort Kent, we'd get 200+, some in carloads from as far away as Madawaska (10 mi.) Moved to the back settlement and only the kid from down the hill.

Lots of daytime RA here; it's the run of dry weekends that is remarkable, a nice change from spring.

Missed the good stuff - 10-16 forecast verified 4.5". Crispy morning w/thick frost, low-mid 20s. Pretty quiet for the residents-only deer opener.

Yesterday's CAA took down the last of the oak leaves, also stripped the understory beech. Essentially 100 sticks.

Might be close to that tomorrow morning, here at the fake-cold factory. Maybe get the deer moving.

1.15" here for monthly total of 6.41", 3/4" A and wettest month since Oct 2019.