tamarack

Nice 8" event here, verified blizz for BGR, WVL, AUG with 12-15". Wife had a follow-up (for knee replacement surgery) at PWM, and we had S- as we headed south. Entered the white tunnel south of Belgrade Village and it got progressively narrower as we continued. With some time to spare, we chose to stop at the Wendy's near I-95 for lunch, hoping the blizz would calm down. (In vain, we ended up calling the Dr office to cancel.) Wind was the strongest in which we tried to walk since Bob, and during gusts (50+ likely) the Irving station next door would disappear. An unfortunate cameraman from BGR ch5 was trying to film the storm and with the big camera adding resistance, he was having a tough time of it. As we headed home, it took less than 5 miles to pop out of the blizz band and back into S- with light winds. Wash/rinse/repeat for Jan 12 (though w/o the Dr appt) as the 3 cities again had verified blizz while I was driving around AUG and then home. Rate was heavier than Boxing Day but winds much less, seemed below blizz conditions to me. Nice 7.3" at home, another 10-15" 25-30 miles south and east. Then a 1.5" fringe from the late month KU. Had more snow in Feb than Jan.

Event total 1.15", bringing October to 6.41" which is 3/4" AN and the wettest month here since Oct 2019. Yesterday's temp of 61/57 was +18 and that low is milder than late July peak summer, 55-56°. Driving home last evening I saw a frog hopping across the road, just like in July. Five years ago we had 63/58 on 10/25 during a 3-day 4.5" downpour that included thunder. Late October warm rains seem fairly common here. CAA coming in on 30+ gusts, though the thermometer hasn't felt it yet. Possible sub-20 for Saturday's Maine residents' deer opener?

Surprised that I-95 was that bad in 12/05, as the real dump came north of HUL. Data that I've found had MLT with 7" paste (I had a cold rainy Grinch), HUL with 11", Bridgewater at 16" and then the bomb - PQI with 25" and CAR at 33.1", their biggest on record, taking down the 29.0" of 3/14-5/84. Chronically undermeasuring Fort Kent reported 30" but I think it was closer to 40, as their data seems often to be merely the increase in pack rather than the new snow. Numbers below: 12/25 25 18 0.05" 0.5" 6" Actually on 12/24 but included in 7 AM obs time 12/26 27 24 1.35 14.0" 20" 12/27 25 13 2.41" 16.0" 36" CAR's 33.1" came on 3.22", so 10.3 ratio. FK shows similar temps, similar ratio on 12/26 then 6.6-to-1 on the 27th. I'd guess they actually had 20-25" between 7 AM on 12/26 and 24 hours later. Had a similar adventure many years ago when driving home to FK from NNJ. We left my parents' place about 4 PM on 12/29/76, in standard cab half-ton pickup, 2WD, with wife, son, cat, dog. (Couldn't find pet sitter. ) We hit snowy roads in S.Mass, falling snow south of Kennebunk, and when we approached BGR at 4 AM in S+ we tried sleeping until sunrise at the Newburgh rest area, but it was too cold. Stopped at Hojo's in BGR for my large coffee and continued, but by the time we got to Medway that coffee and everything else was begging for release - thankfully the rest area (just tables and outhouse) had TP. Plows were alternating left lane and right and the wind was now blowing left to right, so if there was a gust as we caught up to a left-lane plow, instant blackout - could not see the yellow strobes from 100 feet away so just coasted until the wind let up. Sunrise at Mars Hill reinvigorated us and we got home about 9 AM in light snow, light wind. A couple minutes later the 30G50 NW winds arrived and we couldn't see the Pelletier Florist place across the street - very happy that didn't hit as we drove thru the potato fields between PQI and CAR. There had been a ~2-foot event on 12/26-27 and between that and the 11" event that livened up our trip, my wife's blue Beetle was a white lump, not a square inch showing.

I wonder if the major heavy cuts were on abutting landowners. Deboullie has had significant harvesting since the most recent Google Earth imagery (2013) but very little clearcutting (less than 1% of harvest acres) and that generally on hilltop hardwood stands, trying to get a species mix rather than 90% beech sprouts. Other harvests there are of individually marked trees. Around the ponds area, Debo, Gardner, Black, Island - no cuts, it's part of a no-cut ecological reserve.

Half hour of moderate RA 1-1:30. I'd just looked at regional radar and thought the good stuff was still down near PWM, forgetting that I'm in the dead area between BTV/BOS/CAR.

And sometimes the farther north, the better. Best example was 2005-06 when Aroostook got a 25-35" dump on Dec 25-27 and very little after that. In mid-February a fellow from Corpus Christi called the manager of Aroostook State Park (west from PQI) about sledding. The manager said it was terrible there but okay in the St. John Valley. Hard to imagine telling someone from south Texas that central Aroostook in February didn't have good snow. A month later was my one and only long day on a sled, and only experience with a 4-cycle - smoothest throttle and response of any (of the few) sleds I've driven. Temp was 30-32 the day after a significant rain; most trails had recent grooming, so they were smooth but soft. We started from the Northern Door in Fort Kent and rode trails to Eagle Lake, then went off the groomed trails with some water-on-ice crossings, gassed up in town and rode to Deboullie, the last part off the groomer trails again. Riding across Deboullie Pond on 1" new above slush was an adventure; I was fortunate to not be one of the sleds that paunched into the slop. By the time I got back to the motel I'd had more than enough - only 120 miles or so, but I had lots of extra exercise trying to keep up with people who knew how to ride.

Today's low is milder than the average low in late July, at summer's peak.

Morning low of 60. Average here for Oct 26 is 51/32. Light RA currently.

The only DNA-confirmed cougar in Maine since we moved there in 1973 was identified by testing some hair was in . . . Cape Elizabeth - just where one would expect it. There have been numerous reports of sightings, some from very credible sources, but the eyes can be deceived. Ken Allen, who wrote wildlife/hunting columns over 30+ years for the AUG/WVL newspapers, recounted his 2 sightings. He said one appeared valid, as he had a good extended look at a big tan felid with a long tail. The other - while headed south from Greenville during a rainy twilight, the animal ran across the road in front of him. He braked and backed up, looked to his left, and saw a golden retriever standing in a driveway. With all the trailcams out there, very few road kills (see above) and with no cached deer kills encountered by hunters, trappers, foresters, etc., I'm convinced there's no wild breeding populations in the Northeast.

That’s Very interesting. The mill in Madawaska and Edmunston wasn’t there back then? The spruce-fir pulpwood specs at the (then) Fraser mills were essentially the same as for sawlogs at St.-Pamphile, and the stumpage for logs was about twice that for pulp. Also, except for T16R6 ("Eagle Lake"), the land managed by Seven Islands in its St. John River District was far closer to St.-P. Ya, that northern crown of Maine up there can do cold like few other places in the lower 48 that’s for sure. Can be BRUTAL. Coldest morning of our 10 winters in Fort Kent was -47 on Jan. 17, 1979; the max that day was -8. (Trivia note: On Jan. 17-18, 1979, PWM had 27.1" SN, topped only by the 31.9" in Feb 2013. We had 1/2" on the 18th.) At our camp on the American side of the frontier across from St. P, it was "only" -40 that morning. We'd planned to split 4 ways to explore various forests south of the camp, but safety mandated 2 pairs. (2nd trivia note: Jan 1979 was as weird a month as I can remember. It featured 3 of the 5 coldest mornings of our time in Fort Kent, -39, -42 and -47. It also included 5 days in which the lows were 33° to 35°, the only >32 minima in our 10 Januarys there. PWM had 62.4" that month, their greatest month on record. We had 26.2", 1.7" below average. The 5.51" total precip was nearly twice the 2.79" average.) Been up to Escort Station a few times, another remote frigid place in winter. How bout the airfield on the way to escort…that’s a neat runway out there in the middle of nowhere/massive forest wilderness. Drops off like a cliff at the end of it about 100ft…sledders got killed there a few years ago drag racing, and didn’t know it was a cliff at the end. J.D. Iving built that AP circa 1981, at the height of the spruce budworm outbreak, so they could run their own spray program. That area where Dead Brook meets the St. Francis River is probably the biggest gravel deposit within the US share of the St. John watershed. Originally, they merely scraped off the vegetation and organic layer and did the little bit of needed leveling, and applied something to keep the dust down. The "cliff" was actually the very steep embankment cut by Dead Brook. I'd not heard about the sledder tragedy before now. Me and a couple of buddies just rented a cabin in the Cross lake/Sinclair region for the winter for sledding. We love it up there. Great people. Enjoy! Best snomo trails and maintenance in the Northeast, IMO - maybe even for a wider area.

That was my work from January 1976 thru early September 1985, Allagash/Estcourt/St.-Pamphile region, plus the township just east from the town of Eagle Lake. We moved to Fort Kent on New Years Day, and though that day had AN temps, the 5 days Jan 9-13 had minima of -33/-24/-36/-41/-37. Most of the spruce-fir logs and cedar shingle stock on our operations went to mills in St.-Pamphile, as the American markets back then were too distant. Closest was Pinkham, near Ashland, but they only bought spruce and the St.-P mills weren't enthusiastic about fir-only purchases. (Smaller logs with more taper, so more expensive to process.)

I've always heard it called piebald. Only have seen one, on a road in Gardiner after dark about 30 years ago. When the headlights illuminated the critter, I thought at first it was a goat. It had more white than the pic above, maybe 1/3 white-sided and 2/3 brown.

Never eaten bear - hoped to try it when a friend shot a small (125 lb) critter on our woodlot, but he gave it to another friend, it stayed fur-on too long and the meat was spoiled. 45 years ago, when I was scoping out possible road locations 10-12 miles west of Allagash during deer season, I walked to within <20 yards of a sizable bear which was scruffling the leaves to find beechnuts. Since I wasn't using my compass, I was carrying the 7-mm Mauser, had the bear in my sights and safety off, then thought, "Do you really want to kill a bear?" After he'd disappeared, I remembered that I was 4,000 feet from the nearest logging road and that the 2nd half of that distance was a recent harvest in a cedar swamp. If I'd shot the critter, I might've needed to eat it right where it fell. (I've heard that a bear is, pound for pound, the most difficult animal to drag.) Until I eat bear meat and like it (and I'm confident I will), I'll not attempt to shoot one.

Gray squirrels, sure, and I'm confident the larger fox squirrels (not found in the Northeast) are just as tasty. I've never tried red squirrel but friends who have say the meat has spruce-pitch overtones, no surprise given the little rascals' main diet. Gray squirrel meat has a texture similar to that of chicken dark meat, but it has its own mild taste and is very low in fat.

Lot different here the past 3 winters, dropping our running average from 90" to 88", while the 3 before were all nicely AN. 2021-22: 67.1" 2020-21: 52.5" 2nd lowest snow total, ahead of only the 48.2" of 2015-16. 2019-20: 85.1" Helped by 22.0" from March 23 thru May 9. 2018-19: 109.2" 2017-18: 105.5" Most recent AN snow in December, March. 2016:17: 125.3" Included 21" storms in Dec, Feb and a 15.5" blizzard on March 14-15.

It was a bit different here. The first 8 days were cold, 10° BN and the 29° high at the Farmington co-op was the earliest sub-30 max on record, data back thru 1893. That period also featured snowfalls of 3" and 5". Nov 9-15 was mild, 7° AN with a max of 69, then 16-17 brought 7" of powder and the rest of the month was near the average until the cold returned on 28-30.

10/21-23/1979: 80s in SNE, upper 70s CAR/Fort Kent. Also 10/24-27/1963, more SNE 80s and mid-70s in the far north (before 30-31 when the remains of Ginny dumped 12-20" up there and killed two people on Katahdin.)

My recollection was that the Euro and GFS kept swapping run to run - in opposite directions - between slammer and OTS.

Into early March here, though the good snow events ended with 2 advisory storms 2/25-28, resulting in winter's tallest pack. We narrowly (like, 20 miles) missed a big dump on March 7, getting only IP/ZR and about 20 hours w/o power. Lots of 15-20" reports from the mountains. The 3 big dawgs in Dec/Jan were merely 2 nice storms and a 1.5" fringe here, while the first 2 had verified 3+ hour blizzard conditions at BGR, WVL and AUG. Drove to/from AUG in both and the conditions were way worse on Boxing Day than on Jan 12 - wind seemed well below 35 in the latter one, 50+ in the former.

When we moved to BGR on Jan. 23, 1973 so I could study forestry at U. Maine, I was familiar with most of the trees in NNJ where I'd grown up. Maine evergreens, not so much. A few days after the move, I drove west on Rt 2 into the next town and stopped to walk into a roadside stand of evergreens, to see if I could tell spruce from fir - I had no idea which was which. Like any other experienced forester in NNE, I can now discern between the two from a distance, but I clearly remember my earlier total inability to make that call.

Once one gets north of Rt 2, most of the "pines" are spruce and fir. (And maybe you knew that already.)

To get anywhere near my place, you would've needed to take Rt 27 north from AUG and then turn left onto Rt 2. A mile from that corner there's blinker lights and we're 2 road miles north from there. Not as scenic as the notches, but Rt 2 is mostly a nice drive though as the main east-west highway in NNE it has more than its share of trucks.

Only 2-3 miles from dryslot, too. About the same as from Lava Rock when a few mils to 302. When my parents lived in Woodsville, NH, we would take the same route from Lewiston to North Conway on the way there, then drive the Kanc and Kinsman Notch. Less spectacular but nice rural Maine was Route 11 from Mechanics Falls to Rt 302. Our return trip usually took the northerly route, to Jefferson and then Rt 2 to Bethel, 26 to 219 thru the Sumner woods, another even more rural Maine country drive.

We've been a bit spoiled here by Novembers 2018 and 2019, with continuous cover beginning on the 10th and 11th, respectively. Only 2002 (17th) is even close and the only other year in which continuous cover started in November was 2014, with its 13" dump on 11/26-27. 20 of 24 years have seen bare ground in December, though sometimes only for a day or two.

Quebecois from Estcourt and nearby villages cross into Estcourt Station (pop ~20) to get cheaper US gas, though up there even the US fuel is more costly than in more southerly parts of Maine.