tamarack

Thanks for your work in setting up this fun site once again. Will we need new usernames and passwords, or will the ones from last year still work?

Ice storm: December 2008. About an inch and a half of ice at 31F. Amazing event. Most people posting on here were on the forums for this one so they've seen all the pics and such even if they didn't directly experience it. Can't match January 1998 up in NNE but basically no ice storm can. Comparing just worst-to-worst, they may have been close (though the "Godzilla effect" high tension towers in Quebec are indeed unmatched.) But 1998 tore things apart from Montreal to Machias - can't recall another ice storm that covered nearly that much area.

Probably peaked about 10' above MHW, though I've not read anything official. That SSE wind was trying to push all of Penobscot Bay up the river. Of the 200 or so cars flooded (and totaled - BGR temp dropped from 57 to 1 that afternoon/eve), only a single car had been occupied. The woman climbed onto the roof (BDN had a dramatic pic) and a fellow swam out and made the rescue. Just like Hollywood, they got married about 6 months later. (AKAIK, they were strangers at the time of the flood.) We'd had a lesser thaw (43F, 0.20" RA) just 6 days earlier which froze up many culverts, so the ice holes on roads were challenging. Heard news that one in Baker Brook, NB, about 7 miles from Ft. Kent, was deep enough to snare a log truck. That 1st year in FK had as much wx drama as any 2 other years: 1/1: Moved to FK. 1/12: -41, welcome to the St. John Valley. (9th-13th avg minima -34) 2/2: Groundhog gale. 5/7: 1.5" snow in 45 minutes as I tilled the garden. 8/10: 6" RA from the remains of Belle, nearly washed away neighbor's house, ruins our garden. Backyard looked like river bottom stones/gravel. 11/14: (not exactly weather, but snow OG helped) 1st Maine deer. Lo-o-o-ng drag 12/26-30: 36" in 2 storms, 2nd of which accompanied the last 370 miles driving home from family Christmas in NJ. CAR going from +1C to -8C in one hour I impressive on the '76 cold front. My 5-hr drop from +7C to -21C blows away any other CF of my experience.

lol. Feb heat wave (CAR +14.7 for the month) St. John and Allagash ice runs. My top 5 (with then-current residence): Jan 1998 ice storm (Gardiner) April 1987 Kennebec flood (Gardiner) April 1982 blizzard (Fort Kent) Bob (Gardiner) Feb. 2, 1976 SE gale (Fort Kent) Temp 44 to -6 in 5 hr, CAR 957 mb, BGR 200 cars drowned as Penobscot estuary rises 15 feet in 15 minutes, Stonington gust 110+. Honorable mentions (both New Sharon): Dec 6-7, 2003 (24" blizz), Pi Day 2017 (2nd strongest blizz after 4/82)

21 years ago we had 2-3" qpf of ZR with some IP in central Maine, and some folks went 3-4 weeks without power, including the VP of Central Maine Power. Signs of that disaster are still visible if one knows what to look for.

Just checked out that site. 2/16/43 was 1/-43, quite the span. Their -35 on 2/17 was probably a 7:01 AM reading.

Certainly incongruous for PWM itself, not so much for the general area. In addition to the -37 at CON, Bridgton - 30 miles NW of PWM - also had -39. Gardiner, 50 miles to the NE, had -35. However, LEW, 30 miles N from PWM, only got down to -21, and the usually colder Farmington had -28. Their all time low is also -39, in Jan. 1994 (thanks, Pinatubo) on a morning when PWM was -10.

I'm not sure there are any year-round homes above 2000' in Maine - maybe in Rangeley, and if so, only marginally higher. Nobody's even close to 3500. In our almost 10 winters in Ft. Kent, we lived in 3 different spots, 2 in town at about 520' and the 3rd 4 miles to the sw at about the same elev as FVE. All 10 mornings with temps 35-47 below during those winters came at the lower spots. Those 2 sites averaged over 5 mornings/winter at -30 or colder, while the back settlement had only 1.5. WCI records depend, of course, on where observations are being taken. With the exception of MWN, those places usually are not the spots where the lowest chills have occurred. (As you infer in the above post) The state record low temp set in 2009 was at Big Black River, near the St.-Pamphile border crossing, at about 900'. However, I think that Estcourt Station, at 700', may actually get colder, but there's no official obs there. (Maine's coldest WCI is certainly atop Katahdin, 1000' lower than MWN but also 115 miles closer to the North Pole. And Governor Baxter's deeds of trust would probably be violated by having permanent wx instruments there.) C'est la vie.

Revisiting this - Clayton Lake lies in a broad valley at 1000' elev, about 400' higher than CAR. Clayton was -31 that morning, and given the full mixing, was probably at least as windy. I doubt they recorded wind speeds, but -31 at 20 mph converts to WCI of -62. Another revisit, that -85 (old scale) I mentioned in an earlier post. CAR temp was -20 at the time I heard that WCI from the radio, and that would require wind speeds in the low 40s. It was indeed very windy - the gauge on the lee shore of Portage Lake, about 20 miles west from CAR, was wiggling above/below 30 - but the low 40s had to be a gust. We spent that day in the woods another 10-12 miles west of Portage, and sustained 40+ would've had us dodging from crashing spruce trees the whole time. Mid 20s is more likely, for WCI (new scale) around -50, so not a contender.

Same for me. Not a wind chill situation, but when I handle firewood (outdoors) barehanded at +20, it feels cold. At -20 it feels painful.

PWM's coldest (midnight obs, so those 1/17 and 1/18 lows are 2 different mornings.): -39 2/16/1943 -31 2/15/1943 (My earlier -32 was an error.) -26 1/19/1971 -25 2/3/1971 -22 2/2/1961 -22 2/13/1967 -22 1/17/1971 -22 1/18/1971 4 @ -21: 1/24/48 to 1/20/1971. (No surprise that Jan 1971 is their coldest month on record.) I'm 99.9% sure that no other coastal site in the lower 48 has gotten colder than that -39. Even in AK, I think one would need to go north of the Aleutian Peninsula to find a colder morning.

I suspect this was a Northeast-based cold wave. The winds never quit during the coldest days (Jan 14-15), suggesting backside winds from a strong LP. Many record low maxima were measured during those two days. Seeing all the Jan 1985 WCI records reminds me that NNE missed the worst of that huge polar dome, catching only the fringes. Lows for that month in N. Maine were in the -20 neighborhood, modest for that area. However, we never sniffed 32; most locales had month's "warmest" in the mid - or even low - twenties. Dendrite's links included the brief but shockingly cold Feb 1943 blast. The cold for that one was centered well south of places like PQI. NYC touched -8, their 3rd coldest morning on record and 6° colder than anything since, and PWM - a stone's throw from salt water - reached an amazing -39, probably in flat calm. Their coldest WCI for that period would more likely have been the evening before. After a subzero afternoon (about -5, though the day's high was -2 at 12:01 AM) the temp plunged to -32 at 11:59 PM. Their 3rd coldest day was -26, in Jan 1971.

Also the state's highest point, not surprisingly. On a visit there 10-12 years back, I noted a hardwood forest more typical of NNJ, or even CT - altitude/latitude mix. I'm still not impressed with that "record" for Maine. Given the dozens of -40 or colder readings, it would be surprising if not a single one had even the 5 mph breeze that would kick WCI colder than -52. Van Buren, former holder of the state record at -48 (in 1925 - almost certainly no wind data), has had mornings -44 to -47 on 4 days 1984 onward - 1/22/84 -47; 1/11/95 -47; 1/16/09 -44; 1/26/09 -45. Fort Kent had -42 on 1/14/57 (maybe no wind data, either) and -30 on CAR's -52 morning. Clayton Lake, 70 miles WSW from CAR, dropped to -31 on 1/18/82 and probably was just as windy as CAR.

There were 4 in the party, and one was lost in a crevasse at relatively low elevation prior to the windstorm. The others continued, and all 3 survived. I can't remember if they retained all fingers and toes. (I read the book during the mid 1970s.)

Many years ago I read a book called Minus 148 (old scale, obviously), about an attempted winter ascent of Denali during which the climbers were pinned for days by very strong winds. Don Sheldon, the famed Denali-region bush pilot, flew to the mountain during the winds to check on those men, and he recounted a near hover above the same spot while his airspeed indicator was at 140 knots.

Thanks for the link - a fun read. According to the article, Jan. 8, 1968 had a spell with temps running -38 to -46 and winds averaging 92 mph. What's the WCI for -46/92? About -110? The comment about eyes frozen shut reminds me of what I called "walk backwards days" when I lived in N. Maine. These had temps double-digits below zero and very strong winds. When one was facing to windward, a gust would make the eyes water and the first blink froze the lids together, at which point one had to turn away and cover the eyes with (protected) hands until things thawed. There was maybe 4-5 such days in my 10 years there.

Is that definitely the MWN record? They touched -46 on 1/8/1968, and while I don't know their wind speed that day, it was quite breezy where I then lived in NNJ. Another prospect might be late Dec (30,31) of 1962. Temps "only" -41/-40 those days, but to the east the BGR area was getting 30-40" with 16-ft drifts and 60 mph gusts. Meanwhile NYC was establishing its fastest Dec wind on record.

Excellent/interesting thread. Big Black River, near the NW border with Quebec, hit a verified -50 that day to set a new state record. It was probably flat calm or nearly so when the record was set. However, I'm confident that the state has had significantly colder WCIs than that. Try looking at Caribou on 12/25/1980, 1/3,4/1981, 1/17,18/1982, and/or 1/14/1988. On that latter day, CAR was reporting WCI (old scale) of -85 with temp -20. At the Forest Service building in Portage Lake, the (non-verified) thermometer read -32 and the wind gauge (probably a good one, given the importance for fire control) was hovering either side of 30 mph. Christmas 1980 was notable for bitter cold and strong winds throughout the Northeast, and though it was less windy 10 days later, CAR temps on Jan 4 were -16/-27, so probably a bit breezy at the airport. On 1/18/1982, my unofficial thermometer read -34 in the back settlement of Fort Kent, 4 miles SW from (and 450' higher than) the center of Town. No wind gauge, but the blowing snow suggests gusts well into the 30s and sustained 25+. CAR hit -28 that morning, Fort Kent -30.

Some districts may have kids going to school in July. However, there's a lot of specialized (read: expensive) iron running around during/after a snowstorm, and roads usually are in good shape within a few hours of when accumulation ends. Two storms 15"+ in a week won't result in snowbanks as tall as one 12-incher would where I grew up in NNJ. There, all the snow was piled within 6 feet of the travel lanes. Here much of it gets winged back into the woods, as the plowing strategy is to make room for the next storm.

Cliff gets up to about 870', highest point in Fayson Lakes. If there was any elevational advantage for that storm, Cliff Trail would be the place. The moist and dense 2.5" of snow during the day yesterday settled the overall depth to 3" less than I'd seen earlier at 7 AM. 34" is still a nice pack for mid March - I think this Saturday we strap on the snowshoes and prune apple trees.

Not sure how one could get 3.2" in one tube-load, unless it was something like the 4:1 slopfest we had in Feb 2010. Of course, when taking the SWE core from the pack, multiple tube-dips are needed. I use a flat shovel to separate one tube-full from the next, and have a sizable bucket to collect it all.

Well, usually. Last March I had 10" of 7.5-to-1 snow in 5 hours, temp near 20 and no taint - probably a 3" hour during that span. Of course the wind was gusting into the 40s, which might have had an effect.

I'm not sure the Fort Kent co-op did even that, at least when I lived there 1976-85. Their obs were more consistent with having looked at total depth and recording the difference from the previous day's total. We lived a half mile east and maybe 20' higher elev than the co-op site for 4 years, and my one-a-day measurements averaged 111"/winter during that span while the co-op had 90". Made no sense. 1 NNW New Sharon 14.0 700 AM 3/14 Contains 1 24-hr ob Actually 2 measurements, as noted in my previous post.

Wow! A shout-out to my old home town - lived there 1950-71. Wonder if that reading came from the Smoke Rise section, which includes the town's highest elevations. (We lived near West Fayson Lake @ 700'.) Anyway, an excellent discussion - thanks. I've been recording my wx obs at 9 PM since 1/1/76, and continued to do so after joining cocorahs in 8/09. So my board-clearings come at those 2 times. (For the current storm it was 9.0" at 9 PM and 5.0" at 7 AM, and for this time at least, the gain in depth - 23" to 37" - was equal to the sum of the 2 measurements.)

Mine was during a similar early "oughts" timeframe, at the Somerset County Extension office in Skowhegan. Can't remember who came up from GYX to present. Since joining cocorahs, I very rarely call in snowfall, as it's easily available anyway, and since severe TS avoid my area consistently I've not bothered the folks at the phones in GYX much.