tamarack

My forestry education at U. Maine included only one semester on wildfire behavior/control. However, 2 historical fires in Maine illustrated some interesting facets. The largest of the 1947 fires, one which covered about half of the 200k acres torched that October and wiped out the centers of 2 small towns, was already large when a dry cold front quickly changed the wind from SW to NW. That almost instantly making the long flank into the head and endangering those on that flank side. At the time, October had had no measurable rain and the last week of September only 0.08". Given the diurnal ranges at CF time, the air must've been extremely dry. PWM temps: 10/23 83 35 CF early afternoon? That night? 10/24 59 26 10/25 65 20 The 2nd fire was in July 1977 at the SW corner of Baxter Park with some Great Northern land also involved. In November 1974 a heavy wet snow followed by strong NW wind flattened 3,000+ acres. Due to Governor Baxter's deed of trust, very little salvage was done beyond roadside cleanup. June 1977 had been wet, but July had had very little rain when lightning ignited the ultra-seasoned tangle of trees in mid-month, the fire covering nearly all of the blowdown area plus some outside of it, about 3,500 acres in total. The forest had been heavily stocked with mixed hardwoods and softwoods, not especially old but probably about 30 cords/acre and very few trees remained standing after the 1974 event. Stems were often piled 12-15 feet high. The forester who was managing the salvage told me that the flames were able to move downhill at night, thanks to the incredible volume of well-seasoned fuel.

This coming Monday marks 30 years since MWN's windiest met summer day - the 24-hour average was 99 mph, IIRC. Friends were getting married at our (then) church in South Gardiner, with an outdoor reception under a large tent, and the wind would work the 4-foot "pins" upward such that we had to monitor them while carrying sledge hammers.

Genny shut down 8:40 PM, 3rd longest run since it was installed in 2020, though 94 hours lower than Dec 2023. My wife had to switch lanes a couple times on Rt 2 coming home from Farmington, but no detours, just dodging tree tops. Any of those tall pines around Flying Pond get blown down? Couple years back, Maine Cabin Masters had to do a full rebuild on a camp near Flying after several big ones smashed it on Dec 18, 2023.

Still running the genny, approaching 3.5 hr. Read that 6,000+ w/o power in Franklin County. Its total population is a bit under 30k.

At 1 PM I noted that we were in a severe-warned block, but when I went to find the parameters, GYX had dropped the SVR as the storm had weakened. First drops at 1:10 then at 1:15 RA+ and gust after gust arrived - trees pushed around like I hadn't seen since Dec 2023, probably well into the 40s. Strong but short of SVR criteria. 1:18 the genny kicked in (still running now at 2:15) and the heavy rain backed down by 1:20, nearly stopped at 1:25. 0.29" in the gauge, mostly in the 1:15-1:20 span. During the lighter rain a surprisingly wet hummingbird landed on the feeder only 3 feet from me and had a long drink. Only 2 strikes, both distant but enough that the dog hid. I walked out our gravel road, saw that the outage was caused elsewhere, and confirmed that none of the 120-foot-plus pines had fallen.

Another Bald Mountain to consider is in Oquossoc, part of Rangeley. It's about 1.3 miles with 900+feet elevation gain to the obs platform, which offers wonderful 360° views - Mooselook Lake to the West and Rangeley Lake to the east, plus lots of mountains. Last time I climbed it was November 2021, with my son-in-law plus 6 of their 7 kids (the 2-y.o stayed home but the 5 y.o. had a blast) along with 2 neighbor kids. It's a mile of uphill stroll thru forest then 0.3 miles of steeper, rockier but not vertigo steep, to the summit. Not much smoke today, but surprisingly breezy along with the forecast lower TD.

My ice fishing spot, near the forested island about 1/4 mile from the Rt 41 boat launch. Three whiffs and we struck out yesterday. (Or got smoked out) Had a sprinkle at 10 AM but the opportunities at 6 and 10 PM offered nothing except some grumbles to scare our dog. All 3 passed to our west.

All the hail that has fallen on our yard in 28 years (going on 29) would fit in a 2-pound coffee can. I was sad to have missed the 2007 storm, but happy that I still had a garden.

That event caused near-total defoliation of the trees along Rt 302 in Naples, and probably elsewhere that I didn't view. The only other significant defoliating storm was 5-10 miles SE from home, in Rome and New Sharon, on August 30, 2007. Next morning I found 1-2 miles on Rt 27 on the Rome end of Mile Hill as a 2-track thru 6" of leaf salad. Folks there reported up to 4" deep hail in places away from where water flow gathered the ice. Perhaps 2,000 acres were stripped and when the Maine Forest Service forester examined things there, she found considerable debarking, especially in Aspen. Some stripped hemlock did, pines refoliated in the spring, and ash became like bottle-brushes as scores of lateral buds sprouted. Some 2" chunks were reported but along Rt 27 I found only dimes/nickels/few quarters (at 5 PM 24 hours after the storm).

The smoke has moved here. Sun tried and failed to work about noon, and by 1:30 we had that same dingy yellow/brown that dendrite posted. The only thicker smoke I can recall was when I was working at a forest fire. No 90s here; possibly not even 80s.

And the biggest windthrow events since we moved to Maine in 1973 were straight line winds. In November of 1974, about 12" of wet snow followed by strong NW gales flattened about 3,000 acres on the SW corner of Baxter Park. Because Governor Baxter's deeds of trust, the only salvage permitted was along the park roads for safety reasons. In 1977 all that well-seasoned wood was consumed by a wildfire. The other 3,000-acre blowdown was only 10-15 miles northwest from the Baxter damage - a powerful southeast storm (we had gusts to 50 at Fort Kent) in late October 1980 tipped the spruce-fir stands on T4R11 (mostly); I saw that area from the air in June of 1981 and it looked like a giant version of oats lodged by an August downpour. Essentially all that wood was salvaged by Great Northern.

I don't know if Maine has ever had a confirmed EF3 (or stronger).

Those nice echoes shrank to only sprinkles when they arrived here, a common phenomenon since late last month. However, clouds thru late morning mean the sun has a lot of work to do if we're to reach the forecast 93.

Do it. Chronic Lyme is something you don't want to acquire - it can mess up all kinds of functions and sometimes be life threatening. A woman in our church has had chronic Lyme for 5-6 years and it's still causing her lots of problems.

Farther south at Central Park, Dec 2015 average temp would've been 2.7° AN - for November. The 50.8° average was 6.2° warmer than any other NYC December since records began in 1869, a stand-alone gap that had to be many SDs ahead of the #2 mark.