tamarack

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.

If Seven Islands has timber harvesting on C-Town or we (Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands) have a job on the lower half of Richardsontown, the South Arm Road will be plowed all winter, otherwise it's a sled trail. The downside of it being plowed is that you WILL meet logging trucks and the road isn't all that straight, or wide.

Some place in Roxbury (between Rangeley and Rumford) might make sense. For snow you would want to be up and away from Rt 17, the main road thru town. That road gets above 2400' on D-Town and Rangeley Plantation but that's all commercial forest land and they're not about to sell 30 acres. Where people live south of height of land (and its beautiful view from the turn-out) you could still find land above 1500' for triple-digit average snow. If in Rangeley, look for something away from the lakes - prices there could crater by 50% and they would still be hideous.

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.

Looked at the local long term co-op and found a weak positive signal. --Compared to the 127-year JJA average, 11 of those 20 summers were AN and the overall average was +0.60 --Compared to the appropriate decade averages, also 11 were AN and 20-summer average was +0.49. Looking at only the 10 least snowy winters, against LT for JJA the departure was only +0.24 but against the decades it was +0.73. Still pretty weak.

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.

Madawaska cocorahs reported 7.6" thru 7 this morning and 44" OG. Somebody's having winter...

Had a coating this morning and it was snowing lightly when I left home. Cocorahs observer about 10 miles to my west and 800' higher reported 1.4" at 6 AM. Still snowing at FVE at 4 PM.

Another sign of coming spring - yesterday there were about 50 geese on Belgrade Stream at the Rt 27 bridge. Since those birds invest several hundred miles of effort on the chance that their destination will be ready for them, they can't afford to be wrong. I think their arrival is about a week earlier than usual. Edit: Checked back and found that last year's goose-arrival notice came on 3/20, the later date unsurprising as DJF were all about 2° BN and March was running about -6 thru that date. This season Dec was about average, Jan +5, Feb +1.4 and March to date +6.5.

My 57.8" to date is 16.1" BN, 78% of average, and unless the late week storm turns colder, we'll be close to 2' BN before expecting any more.

All the Northeast data I've looked at show a greater rise in minima than in maxima, which would appear to fit with an increase in cloudiness.

Agreed. Driving while high can't be good though I don't know if studies have been made on comparative impairment of weed and alcohol. Unfortunately, objective measures of MJ impairment are much harder to obtain than a breathalyzer, but with increasing legalization such research should quickly follow (assuming the Feds will lift the MJ research ban.) From a personal viewpoint, I've seen what alcohol and tobacco has done to family and wish that recreational use of each (and weed) were not part of the culture. But of course that ship has sailed.

57058 for NYC metro was much AN: NYC Oak Ridge Reservoir (35 miles NW from NYC) DEC 8.7 14.0 JAN 9.2 6.9 FEB 10.7 25.5 Cold storm of 16-17: 7.9" NYC, 19.0" Oak R MAR 15.9 42.0 Paste bomb 20-21: 11.8" NYC, 28.0" Oak R (Pastie on the 14th: 4.1 and 13.0 respectively) APR 0.2 4.5 TOT 44.7 92.9 % Avg 155% 215% 3rd of 63 Rank 27th of 151 (and easily tops for the futile '50s; only 55-56 had more than half as much.) Had some family drama resulting from the equinoctial storm, but that's another story.

Our NNJ school also let us out at noon, with 7-8" of fluff at mid-teens, first big snow I'd seen at sub-20 temps, 18" total. Then Dec 11-12 brought another 18" at low teens and the JFK inaugural storm 20" at near 10. The capper, 24"+ on Feb 3-4, came with the more common mid-upper 20s along with monster winds. March 1960 was the only time I saw our larger lake re-freeze in March after a Feb ice out (and probably to safe thickness though the "safe ice" red ball flag wasn't re-raised.) Snowfall this March remains an unknown, but I highly doubt there will be any cold to match 3/60 - maybe a cold day or 2 (1st-2nd were 5° BN) but not the extended bunches of 10-15° BN of that March.