tamarack

Finished at 4.45", a penny short of #6 and the same margin ahead of (now) #8. Water was coming on to Route 2 in Farmington where Temple stream joins the Sandy, but the level is all river. The town baseball diamond, Hippach Field, looks ready for water polo. Route 27 is impassable at the foot of Mile Hill in New Sharon where the brook makes a right angle turn just before the bridge. May 1 provided 87% of our monthly average.

Had 4.42" by 10 AM. 6th highest in our 25 years here is 4.46" and will probably be exceeded (maybe already has) while #5 at 4.61" is probably safe. Top 4 are 5.43" to 5.99", way out of reach. The athletic fields of U. Maine Farmington are under water, and the Better Living Center (organic products) is adjacent, so they're renaming the place "BLC by the Bay".

Reminds me of the year that the Seattle Mariners won 116 games, tied for the most ever, and then lost to NY in the league championship series. 1st team to win 110+ games and not reach the WS.

Reported 4.09" thru 7 AM, about 4" since 6 PM yesterday. Maybe another 0.3" since 7 but the heavy rain is done. There are puddles in the yard where I've never seen them before. Temple, 2 towns west of here, reported 5.21" by 7 AM.

Beats my 0.06.but then your area is progged for significantly more than here. GYX discussion has 5-7" for the east slope of the Whites - could get interesting along the Saco. I think the rivers to the north Andy and K'bec, should stay within their banks

5 of the last 9 days have been ugly here - 17, 18, 19, 24, 25. I thought today would make 6-of-10 but we've had nice PC and 50s this afternoon after chilly clouds earlier.

The only 2 near-severe TS here, 2005 and last year, came in the 2nd week of June. And the massive tree-stripping hailstorm a few miles to our SE was on Aug 30, 2007. Top TS months, avg/yr: JULY 4.4 JUNE 3.3 AUG 3.2 MAY 1.3 SEPT 1.0 Annual avg: 14.9, but only 11.2 over the past 5 years.

The bolded phrase describes the past 2 days here, though we had a few hours of 42-44 yesterday. Actually had some sun this morning but by 7:30 the clouds had taken over. Friday 60s at Pittston Farm (north from Moosehead), top of the week. Then another dive into the frequent eastern New England wx during the 1st half of spring. Maybe we can get a 2009 repeat. Bite your tongue (or keyboard)! April and May 2009 combined were near my average for precip and sunniness. June and July were terrible - each had the least sun for those months in our 25 years, with June 2009 tied with Dec 2020 for least sun in any month.

Low 40s showers - maybe not.

Who knows? However, my only 1° range was 54/53 on 6/3/2001 - had 0.50" RA after 1.44" the day before. (52/47 that day). In the 25 years here we've had 6 days with 2° range, 3 of which came in Nov. Temp has risen 3° from this morning, so no records there; still dripping.

Another 0.42" reported this morning, total thru 7 AM is 0.90". Since very early yesterday morning, the temp has wiggled between 38 and 40. The annual Pittston Farm men's retreat is this Thurs-Sat. We get the nicest day in the 7-day on Friday but Thursday's drive up will be a sloppy, slimy mess on the final 20+ miles on gravel roads. Probably the least snow there for the retreat since 2006, sometimes there's still 2-3 feet in the woods.

Did it snow at Mansfield? Even here the forecast was for 2 days of 40s and showers beyond. Lookin' good. Who was forecasting a week of this?

Love it, but less when taper turns 2.2" into 3".

Are those sea turtles or common snappers? Both?

Truth. We're about zero-for-5 for the most recent total lunar eclipses, along with conjunctions, aurora, even passages of ISS. I'm sadly pessimistic for next April 8. RA finally reached here about 10 last evening, had a few mod/hvy showers before midnight but only 0.48" thru 7 this morning, -RA/DZ since with temp ~40. Into each NNE spring some mank must fall.

Sill dry here. Spooked a flicker as we got to our driveway about 1 PM, so I guess the ants are awakened.

Despite the melt-off, the Sandy River's 1,640 cfs is less than half the median for the date (3340) and well under the 25th percentile (2210). April precip at 1.27" - this coming week should move it closer to the 4.13" average, but the month will still finish BN. Edit: Yet another modeled day-10 snowstorm. Looking forward to a few catpaws.

Ri-i-i-i-ight. (And I'd be a couple miles too far east anyway.) Only tree with green here is the occasional willow, always the first, by a week or more. Cherry buds opened during last week's 70s but 50s with ~30 minima have put them into near stasis. Same with red maple and elm blossoms.

IZG radiates really well with mountains to the west but only Pleasant Mt to the east, and it's 1,100 feet lower (1200 if S.L. obs are at Adirondack Reg. AP). IZG is also a couple dozen miles closer to the equator and lots closer to the Atlantic heat sink, so no wonder S.L. gets siggy colder.

Coastal wx. Here in the foothills we've had May minima of 27 or cooler - lowest is 21 - every year except 1998, and our mid-month move from Gardiner meant the NS records started on 5/17. Had 32 on the 27th, also 32 in Gardiner on 5/14 (day before the move) so it was almost certainly 20s here that day.

Typical GFS day-10 map. How often have we seen the like since 12/1, and how often has it verified? Once? First day in a week that I could report "sunny" to cocorahs, but the mostly sunny forecast busted when clouds rolled in about 10 AM. At least that few hours of (filtered) sun pushed the temp from 28 to low 50s.

Oops! That's similar to the DD price, ~$8 for a 16-oz bag. (Unless they repeat their 3-for-20 deal.)

Temp was 30° under starry skies at 11 last evening and I figured on low 20s this AM. Like yesterday, clear evening was followed by clouds, kicking the temp up a few degrees by 6 AM. Cloudy 40s here - in fact all Maine sites are 40s at 11 AM - though the clouds are thinner than earlier. Brief sprinkle about 8 AM. BDL was mostly sunny and 61 at 11, no 79-80 today though 70 is certainly within reach.

Yikes! Medium (12-14 oz) hazelnut from DD has gotten more expensive but still <$3. Only buy coffee there (or anywhere) when traveling, however.

As chief forester (retired July 2021) for 600k acres of Maine public lands, I was tasked in 2018 with writing an essay on how climate change would affect Bureau of Parks and Lands timber management. It was presented with two sections, the first being effects on tree species and silviculture, the second being effects on timber harvesting and specifically on frozen-ground harvesting. An excerpt is pasted below, contrasting climate before and after the year 2000 for selected winter data sets. Operational Considerations: A warming climate promises to shorten the length of the frozen ground season and of continuous snow cover. Some of these phenomena, along with lengthened growing seasons and earlier ice-outs, have already been recorded. Models predict that a greater proportion of winter precipitation will fall as rain, though some models indicate that cold climates such as those of Maine may see a temporary increase in snowfall due to the overall increase in precipitation. The above cited report [sorry, not included] covers the entire Northeast, defined within as New York and New England. As Maine has the coldest climate among those seven states, I thought it useful to look at in-state data, using Caribou to represent Northern Maine, Rangeley for the Western Maine mountains, and Farmington as representative of lower elevation sites not in the far north. These sites have records beginning in 1939, 1961 and 1893, respectively, though Farmington’s snow depth records only extend back through 1940. I looked at snowfall, snow cover, and cold, the latter being both the numbers of days during December through March that reached lows of zero or below (for freezing down roads and trails) and days with maxima 32° F or lower (for keeping them frozen). For the three-site average, snowfall during the 21st century has been above 20th-century averages by 6%, supporting the hypothesis that the effect of increased precipitation where winter temperatures average well below freezing is greater than the effect of warming a few degrees. Duration of snow cover has declined 3-6% at Caribou and Farmington in the past twenty years while increasing by 5% at Rangeley. The temperature records show a clear twenty-plus year period of colder temperatures centered on the 1960s and 1970s. However, average temperatures for December through March are 2-3° milder this century than in the previous century, and cold days (zero/32 thresholds) have decreased, down 3% for maxima 32° or below and lower by 21%* for mornings zero or colder. Overall changes have been greatest at Farmington, least/mixed at Rangeley. * Decrease of zero/below by site: Rangeley 11%, Caribou 18%, Farmington 34% (Sadly, the wonderful data set for the Farmington co-op, 99.5% complete and missing only one month [March 1970] since 1913, has apparently ceased reporting since mid-October 2022.)