tamarack

Dipped under 50 for the 1st time in 4 weeks. Couple of sick maples down the road are changing. So are the swamp maples - right on time for them. Other than that, a lot of trees have tired-looking leaves, maybe because they've sucked the upper soil dry. For most New England trees, 95%+ of their roots are within 2 feet of the surface.

Jack up the ridge caps and slide a new building under them - easy fix.

Worked 39 years ago (above 47N).

5.1" BN here for those 90 days, but that map has us in the 2-4" color. Though the well is down and the garden dry, this is still a short-term drought, at least for one who came of age during the 1960s in NNJ.

Nah, this is the one that finally soaks us. How do I know? Next Tuesday/Wednesday is Maine Public Lands' peer review field trip, this year in the western Maine mountains. These trips have drawn some interesting wx in the past: ripping TS with blowdowns in 1997 (Mahoosucs) and 2007 (upper Kennebec Valley), thoroughly doused by the remains of Katrina in 2005 at Round Pond (on the Allagash), rainy 50s west of Rangeley in 2010, rain in the pines Downeast in 2015 and 2018 (at the same red pines), dancing with Isaias 2 years ago. (1997 was in June, all the others in August.) We can't miss, this time.

Even more confusing during summer 1983 was the very large nest in a yellow birch sapling. When begun, that nest was 8-10 feet off the ground, but its mass had bent the little tree into an arch that lowered the nest to within 2 feet of the dirt. Not sure how that should be interpreted.

Even up here, most summers have weeks-long periods with high dews and warm/hot temps, but once things cool off for a bit, it's uncommon for temps/dews to regain that peak in August/Sept. Last time that occurred here was 2010. Yesterday's high of 66 was the first <70 since June 20; the 49 straight days of 70+ maxima is the longest in our 24+ years.

Sad. Seems like the defense did a "good" job of creating doubt, pointing to witness inconsistencies. However, that's what eyewitnesses do. The only way there would be no inconsistencies would be if all the witnesses had gathered and synchronized their stories.

Nah! The summer when the nests in northern Maine were 10-15 feet off the ground, the following winter (1982-83) saw a January thaw wipe out almost all the cover. That winter's deepest pack, 24", was the lowest of our 9 full winters there. The next summer most nests were near the ground and winter 83-84 was the only one in which my 61" snow stake needed an extension. (May not apply to SNH )

We were in the woods just NE from Baxter Park on March 30-31, 1998, and had low-mid 30s with fog, drizzle and a few IP. Meanwhile, PWM was approaching 90. My "favorite" reverse gradient came in my first year in Maine. The mid-December event that broke half the trees in western CT was 4" SN at BGR followed by nearly 3" RA and temp up to 56. Meanwhile, my parents in the NNJ home where I grew up had 15 with light ZR. A few hours later it was 51 in BGR and 9 with IP in NNJ. Powerful storm took a sharp left turn at just the wrong time for this snow-lover. (That 73-74 winter would've challenged for BGR's least snowy but for 16" in April.)

Greatest gradient I can recall for stations basically in the same airmass came on May 29, 1978 - HUL had 96 while EPO, only 95 miles away, was in the fog at 49.

0.15" here, but that includes the 0.08" that fell 9:10-9:30 this morning. So much for the 1-2" thinking - there's nothing showing upstream, so unless the WF slides north to push us into the humid 80s (currently in low 60s) and brings convection, we're cooked for this system. Thursday RA seems to be slipping away as well.

On our 2016 visit, we had dinner one night at an Italian place in Honolulu, where it was 70s into late evening, and driving back to Haleiwa the car thermometer dropped down to 60 (with drizzle) as we went thru the notch between the mountains. Probably less than 1500' asl so I was a bit surprised at the coolness. Edit: Just traced our route on Google Earth, and our drive peaked at a few feet above 1,000, a half mile or so north of Dole Plantation.

PWM hit 95 at 12:15 and by 1 PM they had 75. Here it's been a "cake yesterday and cake tomorrow" variant - We're too far from the action to get synoptic rain and too close to get convective rain. Maybe tomorrow?

Hope there's still some RA if/when the front gets here. The current RA band was close enough 7-9 AM to sprinkle here but has rotated a bit clockwise, moving the band farther away while hitting Downeast. Yesterday, many points 30-50 miles to our south got 1/2"-1" from TS, much less one town west, nothing here. At least the clouds have killed the big heat. Yesterday's 88/67 is the year's hottest daily mean, and 2nd highest for 25 Augusts here (tops is 78.5 on 8/1/99), though the 90/52 on May 14 remains hottest max, though 6.5° lower mean.

For most of NNE, Irene is the only impactful TC since Floyd. We got 4" from Irene but little wind, while Floyd dumped nearly 6" and had gusts into the 40s here, our most recent siggy wind from a TC. Our white birch is beginning to shed, as is usual by early August. Can't recall the black birch in NNJ dropping leaves early and we're north of its range here.

Absolutely! Rain shadows downwind of the higher volcanic mountains are found on all the major islands. It still amazes that HI has places that get rain similar to that at Phoenix and places (on Kauai) that are in the running for the Earth's wettest climate.

I'm a bit suspicious of CON's coldest for 1910-40. They only got down to -19 on 2/9/34, just 1° colder than BOS (their coldest morning), 4° below Central Park (their coldest, too) and 11° milder than EEN. Seems like CON should've been at the colder end of the -20s. Also, my CON records only go back thru 1920, thus missing the frigid Dec 17-Jan 18 week.

GYX morning AFD has today's best chance for TS from the Capitol District south, and heaviest RA tomorrow-Tuesday from the mountains north. Guess what lies between. At least the front should be near enough to end the big heat here after today, even while the dews remain swampy for a few more days.

Would've loved that "nadir" as it was more than twice what fell here.

Nice 1940s baseball lore. But I think those storms will poop out before reaching 70° west longitude (or will stay to our south).

Our one HI trip stayed on Oahu, as my BIL lives in Haleiwa. The temp difference between south shore Honolulu and the North Shore was quite a contrast, sunny 80s vs showery low 70s with locals shivering around their electric space heaters. Coming from sleety Maine March, we much preferred the cool.

FVE at noon: 74/52. HUL 78/58. O so close.

Having framed houses in NNJ during peak HHH, I think they're leading you on, unless they like it because it provides a reason for an afternoon beer break.

Listened to thunder from 8 to 10 last evening, some from strikes within 2 miles. 2 hours traumatizing the dog for just 0.08", with another 0.05" some hours later. Crosstown neighbor reported 0.25". Low of 66 this morning under the clouds. Very warm and humid yesterday morning but a cloud deck arrived at noon to hold the max to 85.