tamarack

Morning low here was 57. If it holds, it will be the mildest minimum here since last August. Yesterday's 78 was the year's warmest, and the current full sun might push the temp past 80 if the clouds hold off long enough.

It's 2.5 years since my anaplas experience. Picked up the tick while hunting on Veterans' Day (clever little monster hid in the short hairs) and 10 days later I was totally miserable - wife thought it was a stroke. Diagnosis on 11/22, doxy Rx 23rd, felt much better 24th but finished the 10-day regimen.

Another harbinger of spring yesterday - mosquitos and black flies are out and about. The skeeters are biting but those other things are merely perusing the menu. Mid-May is their usual arrival; peak attacks will be next week when the younger grandkids are here. At least the deerflies won't be here by then - June/July for their carpet bombing.

W/SW breeze, dews mid 40s. Recipe for Aroostook heat in spring.

Still there - guess I'm not old enough yet. I used to be young and foolish; I'm not young anymore.

Because it's midweek.

Not as perfect here as the clouds won, other than a few late morning sun peeks - high was 63 (right at the average). Now some clouds are spoiling the full sun after a near-freezing start.

Other than 10 minutes of PC, it's been cloudy so far today. The clouds that forestalled a frost are also keeping us from approaching 70.

Ten seconds of sun about 5:30, peeking thru a rift in the clouds. May 1-10, one sunny day, 2 PC, 7 cloudy. Just under 3" so no flooding, just endless wet - only 5/1 had no rain.

Less than half that here - approaching 0.9" but we're about done. Still without a 1"+ day this year. PWM reported 2.20" from 2 AM thru 2 PM. Might be a few puddles there.

Mid 40s with light RA, only 0.3" in 12 hours thru 7 AM. Wood stove doing its thing.

May 2005, Tip's most unfavorite month, set the bar for yuck. The 5 days 5/22-26 (almost June!) averaged 48/41 here and dumped 5.14" of wet - with winds to increase the misery.

It's faster going downhill. Day started with ~2 hours of PC, then the clouds closed back in with a few spritzes. At least it's low 60s.

I certainly don't like black flies - some years ago I tripped in the woods north from Flagstaff Lake and cut my palm. The little horrors thought "It's a buffet!" and landed by the dozen. However, I despise deerflies even more, especially in the far north of Maine. Imagine 50 of them swarming around, accompanied by 100+ similarly sized but non-biting "sweat lickers" on a hot day. One cannot tell which of the little bombers carry knives, nor can one run fast enough to escape. I've never been chased out of the woods by bugs, but that scenario has come the closest. Sun! (peeks only)

That's deerfly behavior. Black flies scrape down to capillary level and lap up their dinner while the dainty mosquitos take their nourishment thru a straw. Leaves emerging all over. The various pastels of different trees aren't as spectacular as autumn, but the muted colors have their own charm.

Probably rained (with skips) 48 hours this month, and we're up to about 1.25". Keeps the fire danger low, if nothing else.

It's 9 years since our Japan trip to see our son and DIL. United works with ANA but the service quality between the 2 airlines was enormously different - the Japanese attendants were far more polite and helpful.

May 22, 1977. The day I chose to add 6" fiberglass insulation to the attic of our first house in Fort Kent. Fortunately, it was a small house - 2-story 18x20 - and I was done by 11 AM. Temp was probably 120+ up there by then. CAR temps 22-24 were 96, 95, 94 and the low on the 23rd was 69; that 82° is just 0.5° below their hottest mean.

Thanks, Dendrite. All 3 NNE states set their all-time highest in July 1911. ASH hit 106, the other 2 105.

CAR's hottest is 96, reached once in May and twice in June. Modest dews, a bit of downsloping from west wind (not SW, too much water to heat), heat records.

Light (mostly) rain and low 50s all day.

Growth rings usually get thinner as the tree gets bigger, in part because adding diameter on big trees adds more basal area than the same diameter growth on smaller trees. Forest researchers I respect have stated that some white ash can tolerate EAB and the western blue ash has even more tolerance, but green and black ("brown" in Maine) apparently have almost no tolerance.

Case in point: EWR. Consistently voted the least pleasant major US airport and now it can't even accomplish some of the routine AP activities.

Barely over 50 here; I think the warm-up is cooked for today.

About 6 weeks later (Mid-July) we were visiting family at DEC and near sunset on Saturday a storm passed maybe 6-8 miles to our south. Most frequent flashes I ever hope to see - 100/minute plus - and the thunder was like a drum roll thanks to distance/frequency. Later that evening another storm dumped 3" at the kids' place in 90 minutes; lots of thunder but nothing like the earlier one. Next morning at church folks were exclaiming about the light show - impressed even the locals.