tamarack

Three homes on our 2000' of dead-end (in winter) road - guess who's tail-end Charlie for power restoration. (As long as nothing gets wrecked within that 2000', we'll be okay.)

We've made a down payment for an on-demand generator but it can't be installed until the underground gas line can be dug. Glad the winter wasn't bitter cold - less frost to thaw.

"Some" people - my lament was for big April snow forecasts that didn't verify, or verified to the south. Of course, the snowblower gas tank is nearly empty. The machine was running on fumes when I finished up the 3/24 dump, and not (then) seeing anything significant coming up, I didn't want to fill the tank only to have to drain it before putting it away later in the month. Anything under 8" this time of year doesn't warrant using the blower, the trade-off being a few hours of waiting compared to hurling more driveway material onto the lawn.

They got something like 17" on April 28-29, 1987. Only about 7" for central Maine and the foothills.

Getting close enough to almost be real. April storm forecasts 3-4 days out have been fails in recent years - 2016 and 2017.1 slipped south - and even WS warned storms have underperformed here - 2017.2 and last April. GYX's 90%/expected/10% last evening for Farmington was <1"/4"/14", crazy wide range though understandable for a tightrope April event. This morning it's 4"/10"/15" and spots in the western mts have significant (>10%) odds of 18"+. Could get interesting, could miss by 1°C or a few mb less strengthening and be a total slopfest under 1000'.

They've not done all that great this snow season. Both are significantly BN and haven't gotten any storms near to what parts of SNE had in early DEC. Rangeley's biggest is 10" and while Jackman got 13 from that same end of Feb event, they had a near whiff on the Mar 23-24 storm, 1.4" while the foothills were +/-10". A later bombo might leave them short on qpf and jack the hills of northern Washington County (and NB.)

Not impossible that it could dump similar snowfall in places, but as the maps posted by ma blizzard show, a totally different animal. Instead of the usual wet April snow like this one will be (at best), 1982 was midwinter powder. From NYC, which has nothing else like it in their 151 Aprils, up thru CAR, that storm had a degree of anomaly that I would put behind only 9/38, 6/53 and the Octobomb for New England events. (Also the greatest positive bust I ever expect to witness. )

CAR is AN but Jackman is about 15" BN for ytd and Rangeley 21" BN. If they get another 24" and 31", respectively, they'll hit the averages.

A few miles farther east might be preferable this late in the season. Also, the Euro slp map you posted puts the center closer to Isles of Shoals, which would probably mean a howling flooding 35° northeaster for my area. how close are you to average? 8" below. Here it's 17" under, and only one April of my 22 here has topped that amount. (2007, which dumped more than double!)

In the 8 Aprils since the 4/1/11 dump, our area has had that kind of forecast 4-5 times without any reaching even 4", so seeing would be believing. Ice is out early up here on two of the lakes I fish, Guess I’ll have to wait to see what happens late week, Was planning to go this weekend. Long Pond in Belgrade is about 2/3 clear with only the N and S coves remaining, and the ice there is all black and probably won't survive today's sunny 50s. The near-2" RA followed by Sat-Sun 50s took a 10" pack down to "trace" by last evening, ending the run of 1"+ at 146 days, not bad for a warm winter with 20% BN snowfall. Getting 20+ days in November helps.

3-pounders. Those are big bugs. 1st burgers on the grill here in a couple hours. Clouds moving in after 6 hours of mostly sunny.

Surprising sunlight here, and snow atop the overwintered carrots was thin enough for me to move it (and the leaf mulch beneath) and dig. Broke a couple with the garden fork but they are super tasty after sleeping all winter.

I'm about 30' lower than the Farmington co-op, but we're in the woods. Our "lawn" covers perhaps 1/20 acre with 50-70' trees to the SE and SW, though most are deciduous. Cold air drains down from the SW-facing field across the road and stops at our place, other than what can filter into the woods. It's about perfect for retention, given the modest elevation. Only 3" left this morning as nearly 2" RA took most away. If you reach Farmington via Route 27 from Augusta, the real snow catcher is Mile Hill - road gets a bit over 800' along the "plateau", which is on gently east facing slope. The town/county sign is about 2/3 of the way up the south side of the hill. (It's named for the length of the north-facing hill, which drops about 300' in that mile.) If you check out cocorahs, look for the obs from Temple, especially in borderline snow events. That observer is at 1,224', which can result in some interesting reports. In the late Feb mashed potato mess of 2010, the Farmington co-op had 8.8" and Temple 26.4", only about 6 miles away. (And 800' higher) Edit: Yesterday morning I reported 7" to cocorahs. The Temple observer had 18" - not surprising.

Kennebec flood warning posted at Skowhegan, though the forecast peak is only 101% of flood flow. I guess if it rings the bell the warning gets posted, whether the overage is 400 cfs (like now) or 40,000. If it crests at 35.4 up there, it's unlikely to reach flood stage in Augusta as the heaviest rain was on drainages north and west of Skowhegan.

March snowfall here (15.5") was below the mean of 17.5" but above the median of 14.9" - getting 55.5" in 3/01 skews the average a bit. Ground's been white from 11/11 onward but with only 7" this morning it's only got a few more days. Current consecutive run is 145 days, and amazingly given the quality of this winter, that trails only last winter and is 4th for total 1"+ days. We'll pass 2002-03 (another low-snow winter, but due to suppression) on Sunday and would tie 2014-15 at 150 if the cover survives until Wednesday evening - I think not. SDDs are well below both average and median, same as 02-03 though we're a bit higher than that winter.

25 hr of continuous RA thru 7 this morning for 1.83" total, maybe another tenth after that. Yesterday's temps 39/33, classic early spring blecchh. However, that was the first >32 minimum since Nov. 5. Not much coming down here in AUG but a lot of air moving sideways.

Signs of spring this week, other than the usual cold rain: --Wednesday morning - turkey gobbling just out of sight in the field across from the house. --Thursday (and especially this morning) - Worms on the sidewalk, means the ground has thawed enough that the rain drives the poor critters up for air. Storm total precip (all RA) was 1.83" at my place thru 7 this morning. Probably not quite enough to enable the Kennebec to wash the west-shore parking lots in Augusta.

That might excite the Kennebec a little bit.

5+ feet atop Sugarloaf - would be a challenge to skin up the mountain in yards of wet snow.

In the 54 days from Jan.25 thru March 19 that year I had 63" with up to 31" depth, nice AN stretch. 120 miles east and a mere 20' above high tide, Machias recorded 137" and the pack built up to 74" in mid Feb and stayed above 50" for more than a month. Most frustrating "good" winter in memory. Happening now is more classic "wheel of 'rhea"....we might as well relive May 2005 for a few days coming up. Far, far less torturous in the 1st week of April than the 4th week of May. In 2005 that week brought 5" RA over a 5-day stretch that never got out of the 40s except for one morning in the upper 30s.

Beats my 15" on 4/1/2011. Since the March thread is moribund, I'll put my numbers for the month here: Avg max: 39.9 +1.6 Mildest was 54 on the 9th. Avg min: 21.1 +4.9 Coldest was -2 on the 2nd. All but 2010 of my 22 Marches have gone subzero, though -2 is tied with 2004 for 2nd "mildest" monthly low. Avg mean: 30.5 +3.3 5th mildest of 22. Precip: 3.12" 0.50" BN Wettest day was 0.78" on the 13th. Snowfall: 15.5" 2.0" BN 8.7" came on 3/24,part of the season's biggest event,10.3" on 23-24. Snowpack: Depth briefly reached 21" at 7 AM on 3/24 but that day's sunny high 40s collapsed the powder to 15" by my 9 PM obs time. Tallest at 9 was 18" on 3/1,2. Temperature was D-level but snow gets a C, raised from C- (usual for snowfall 80-90% of avg) due to the 10" event, a nice if brief break from season-long meh..

Actually took about 60 minutes of partly cloudy. Anything not in shade is gone. And April install? In 21 years I've yet to record a single cooling DD before May, though 4/28/09 was close (89/41 but desert dry and 4/29 was 58/34.) Haven't had a minimum 60+ (where stickiness begins) prior to 5/26.

Still hanging around 30° under the clouds in Augusta. Spring sun working on last evening's 2" of fluff but it's slow going so far. Sun comes out for 30 minutes and it's gone.

The Rangeley area lakes show up bright and white, but not the Belgrade lakes, which also remain almost totally ice covered. Odd.

Was a bit surprised to find an inch new at home, similar to the most I saw on Mile Hill, 6 miles south but 400' higher. Most accumulation came 1-4 PM and max temp was 32, after the 31/5 on Monday.