tamarack

That's amazing. I've had half your snowfall but twice the pack (though it may lose an inch today.) It's where upslope goes to die but is great for CAD. I wonder if some of the southerly warmth running up the CT River spills over the NH notches but can't pass the Mahoosucs. There have been several times during warm-tongue events when I've been 5-10° cooler than BML/HIE here at 390'.

Nearest Home Depot is 30 miles away, not practical for hauling a half ton of firewood a couple hundred yards, or other similar short-haul trips. Since 1994 I've driven 2 Rangers separated by a Ranger clone (Mazda) and put about 375k total on the 3 vehicles. All 3 have been 2WD and mileage runs 28+ in summer, 23-25 in winter. Unfortunately the reborn Ranger is about 1,000 lb heavier and gets 30% poorer mileage. Had a hard time finding a mid-range miles Ranger closer than PA 5 years ago - not sure what I'll choose when this one is done.

136.7" in 54 days, Jan 25-March 19, with 74" pack in mid Feb, at 20' asl. My prime pack-retention locale had 47" less at that time.

Vent on my old Jotul combi-fire (1970s technology) sucks air like a wind tunnel. If I open it halfway, even green wood burns cleanly if placed on a good bed of embers.

Lac Saint-Jean is huge - perhaps 10X Winni, and has several significant inlets. Makes me wonder if, like last week's Moosehead fatal snomo-splash, they got too close to where a river entered. Night rides on/near lakes is always a dodgey practice; several years ago there were 4 killed - party of 3 men and separately, a mother and son and only the son made it out of the water. Happened on Rangeley Lake when they got off trail and rode into open water on a snowy night.

Midpoint of the heating season (HDDs) at my place comes on Jan. 21. That's also our coldest day on average, so we're 2 days into the long climb to summer. The snowfall season lags a bit behind - on average 56% of season's snow falls Jan. 24 and later. 8.5" while I was on vacation, and another 5.5" when I got back puts me at 40.3" for the season now. Yet another Portlander with more snow than the "snowy" foothills, and I'm becoming less and less confident about this weekend changing that.

That was 2 days after the JFK inaugural storm, which dumped 1-2+ feet in the NYC metro and nearby. 2 subfreezing weeks after that storm a bigger windier event brought even more. Depths in NNJ were up to 52", nearly a foot more than any other NJ records I've found. (And it compares well with all but one of my Maine winters - 47 years ago today we and all our possessions were in a U-Haul heading from NNJ to BGR so I could start spring semester at U.Maine forestry school.) Another personal note: I went ice fishing that cold (-12 at our place in NNJ) and windy Saturday, handled a small but slimy pickerel while unhooking and releasing it. Had to wash off the slime in the lake water after which I ran for the fire on shore - in that 100-yard dash the water on my fingers had mostly turned to ice. (With age I've learned to stay off the ice in wx like that.)

Was there any differences in cloud cover? Last evening we had thin overcast but it was enough to make temps hang around 20 thru 10 PM when I stopped looking. When I left home at 6:45 this morning it was mostly clear and zero or a bit below.

I've read that following the BGR-region's blizzard on NYE of 1962, dynamite was needed to loosen windpack where a highway passed thru a cut with ledge on both sides - ordinary equipment couldn't hack it. In BGR itself there were drifts over 16' tall, enough to get a large bulldozer stuck.

We had the same underwhelming "welcome" when we moved from NNJ to BGR in Jan. 1973. Saw lots of snow piles from their huge Dec. '72 but did not see even one 8" snowstorm in met winter until the 11.5" on Dec. 18, 1975, two weeks before our move to Ft. Kent. We did have 8.5" in Nov.'74, 8.6" in April '74 and 12.0" in April '75. Then, despite frequent snows and good pack, FK had no storms greater than 8.2" for nearly a year, until late Dec. '76 when 24"and 12" dumps came Dec. 26-31. Of course we were in NJ for Christmas then, missing the 2-footer entirely though we got to drive the length of Maine (after dark) during the 12-incher. (Later winters there, and at my present location, have certainly made up for that.)

My average for snowfall thru Jan 21 is 39.57", so this season couldn't be any closer to average so far. We'll be about 2" BN when/if the weekend storm arrives. It was about -10 at 5 this morning but warmed a few degrees until the lights went out at 6:20 - police were headed north on Starks Road (Rt 134) so I wonder if someone hit a pole up there. This cold stretch is good though because the pond ice was not trustable. Sledder went thru the ice on Moosehead over the weekend - rode too close to the mouth of the Moose River. He was pulled out fairly soon but not soon enough - pronounced dead at Greenville Hospital. I think it's the season's 1st snowsled-in-water fatal this season.

5.3" at my place, a bit more than I'd expected. Maine bullseye was Cumberland County just inland, a number of double digit reports topped by 14.2" in Standish, south side of Sebago. (LES? The lake is almost totally ice free. )

0.9" overnight, pretty much as forecast. That makes 7 separate little snow events this month totaling all of 4.1". Will #8 exceed the first 7? Would be nice if #8 doubles the month's total and #9 redoubles it.

CAR measured 12.8" snow yesterday, and their temps are +11.6° for Jan 1-12. Now 7.6° AN at my place after +23.4 and +16.1 for the weekend.

After a snowy December and several early January snowstorms (though little from the huge MA blizzard), NNE had 3 warm rain events dump a total of about 4" in 10 days. Farmington co-op had a 40" pack drop to 8", truly freakish for what's normally the coldest stretch of winter. Some ice jam flooding along the Sandy River too.

The woods pic reminds me of when we drove thru LES on I-80 in western PA early in 2012. That was the view of the thick stand of trees on the median, though I didn't dare more than a quick peek. We could see the 4-ways on the car ahead of us but sometimes not the flashers on the next one in line. I guessed 6"-per in that one but obviously couldn't verify.

I've read and heard from more reliable sources that arson is suspected in a number of the Australian wildfires. That doesn't change the fact that abnormally hot and dry weather (at a time when climo is already hot and dry) is making those fires far more catastrophic than they would be with normal weather, and far harsher to those trying to control the fires.

Great fun reading about this event. We escaped without a flake, as there was a wide gap between lighter SN to the north and the whiteouts to the south.

Maybe a bit more frequent for me. For my area where winter is pretty consistent with regular snowfall, I'm defining "ratter" as <75% average snow and significantly AN temps for DJFM. That omits 02-03, which met the snow criterion but was very cold. Winters meeting those criteria are 99-00, 01-02, 05-06, 09-10, 11-12, 15-16, so 6 of 21. Worst were 05-06 and 15-16 (10-year repeat?) 09-10 had 15-20" more snow than those 2, but is in the race to the bottom due to the frustration factor - 4 EC KUs that winter, and we got 3 whiffs and #4 was the most unpleasant double-digit snowstorm I ever hope to see, Edit: I think 75" would be close to long-term climo for your site, about 20% higher than PWM.

If those are nickels and dimes, my area must be getting ha'pennies. This morning's half inch (maybe 3/4 by the time it ended) marks the 4th snow event of the new year here, and they total about 3", not 14. Keeps the surface looking fresh, at least, though the weekend may leave a bedraggled pack topped by a few IP.

The analog to the Tolland Triangle on I-84 has struck again on I-95 between Newport and BGR. About 30 vehicles in a chain reaction accident this AM, evidently due to blinding sun, with the northbound lane totally closed (may have reopened by now) and hundreds of vehicles stuck behind the mess. It's 5-10 miles north of where nearly 100 cars and trucks wrecked when hit by a sudden snowburst from an otherwise weak storm 4 years ago. At least one serious injury in today's mess, life flighted to a BGR hospital, and several lesser injuries.

Very modest "extremes" in temp the past 2 months. My mildest since Nov. 5 is 46, and except for the brief -9 on 12/21 my coldest has been -2. Since my current average minimum is 6° and 2 weeks from now will be 2°, temps have been AN and meh, especially since early December. Another little snow event yesterday, quite different from the day before. That earlier one was RA to SN, an inch of 10:1 that frosted the twigs. Yesterday it was 1.1" from 0.04" LE in dry flakes and evening feathers. Maybe 3 +/- one-inch events in 4 days with tomorrow's entry?

We hear a great horned on occasion but have yet to see one here. Barred owls, and saw-whets during the milder seasons, make up 95%+ of owl calls heard around home. On T-Day (or near it) we had a barred owl sit like Mitch's pic but in a hardwood tree for an hour or so until some blue jays mobbed it and it left.

October 1947 in Maine - 25° cooler but same situation. The CF turns winds from SW to NW, so that the fire's left flank (as one sees from in front) suddenly becomes the head. Very dangerous, and since a typical large fire has wider flanks than its head, strong wind plus wider head often means disaster. I read 500,000 animals dead, not sure how they came up with that stat but some of the videos are heartbreaking Wildlife biologists usually make estimates of animal populations. That plus burn area offers a very rough estimate of casualties.

Top ten Decembers I've measured, from a variety of places: 1. 61.5" 1976 Fort Kent 2. 47.3" 1978 Fort Kent 3. 46.2" 2007 New Sharon 4. 46.1" 1981 Fort Kent 5. 44.8" 1983 Fort Kent 6. 43.2" 1995 Gardiner 7. 39.9" 2016 New Sharon 8. 38.4" 2003 New Sharon 9. 34.6" 1977 Fort Kent 10. 32.3" 1984 Fort Kent My 9 Decembers in Fort Kent averaged 36.4" and I never had 40+ in another month there - 39.5" in Jan. 1977 is closest. #11 is either 2013 in New Sharon or 1966 in NNJ, each about 31". This year's 15.9" ranks 13th of 22 here, 26th of 47 since moving to Maine. (Add NNJ, using sites near where I lived, makes this year 31st of 73 - yay, top half!)