tamarack

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.

This, in spades. 15 years ago, my wife was suffering "Haglund's deformity" - heel bone spurs damaging the Achilles tendon - on both feet. She was shown methodologies of 2 specialists. The first would sever the Achilles to access the spurs, then reattach it after removing the spurs. The second would split the tendon lengthwise and spread it to get access. She chose door #2, mainly because the sever/reattach seemed more hazardous. The 2-weeks-shorter rehab after the split method was also a factor. Surgeries on each foot were completely successful.

25 at my place, with skim ice on the bucket I put under the eaves during the garden season. A pretty epic storm for NJ coast it seems. 5.90" cocorahs report from the Jersey coast, with 2-4"+ all over south and coastal sites (except Cape May). NW Jersey got little to nothing. Radar still impressive where yesterday's deluge landed.

Only those folks too young to remember the late1970s/early 1980s "stagflation" followed by much higher interest rates than now. We remember, as we finally bought in 1981 the northern Maine home we'd sought for two years, with the mortgage rate at 17.5%.

Lowest I saw was PQI at 23; Estcourt Station must've been flirting with 20. Had 25 at my frost pocket, enough to put 1/16" ice on the catch bucket under the eaves.

They were, and today they must be testing it or something, as there's a circular area showing much less echoes, centered on the dome.

September wx in the foothills: Avg temp: 55.9 0.8 BN Avg max: 65.2 2.7 BN (3rd lowest avg max) Warmest: 79 on the 10th Avg min: 46.7 1.1 AN (2nd lowest diurnal range) Coolest: 29 on the 30th, month's only frost, though 9/17 saw frozen dew on the car roof Precip: 4.79" 1.13" AN Biggest day: 1.28" on the 19th. The 2.60" total for 18-20 is the greatest event since 12/25-26/2020.

Frosty 29 this morning, makes 23 of 25 years with first frost in Sept, with last year and 2011 the Oct outliers. Colors are approaching peak near the house, 50% change in the broader area.

That's what we pay for cut/split/unseasoned. Boosted from $200 for the previous 3-4 years. We burn 4-5 cd/yr here, same as when we lived in Gardiner despite 15% more HDDs in the foothills. Took 6+ cd in Fort Kent, but we never paid for wood there - usually I'd load the pickup after work in the Allagash/St. John country, and 2 years I was able to cut pulpwood-quality hardwoods (was no market for it then) and pay to have it hauled to the house. We moved into our first house in May 1977, and I'd installed the little Jotul 612 the day before the move. Only once was I able to cut a winter's wood here, mainly because I had to cut 2.5 cords just to get DirecTV. (When hi-def came, we could only get PBS - intermittently.)

Thanks for clarifying. The pic was labeled 12:54 PM and the caption said, "...more than 7 hours before high tide...", seemingly not quite correct. And the small tidal variation in most of the Gulf would mean only a tiny benefit of a low-tide LF.

That would mean that it's currently near low tide, a tiny blessing within a horrible storm. 7 hours later than that pic, Naples should be getting sub-hurricane strength winds, though it would be backside, thus blowing in from the Gulf.