tamarack

Npot necessarily. The Dec. 6-7, 2003 storm was one of the windiest I've seen in our somewhat protected (by forest) location, with gusts well into the 30s and much drifting, and it dumped 24" on 1.63" LE, ratio of 14.7.

First big January snowstorm in years, and I'm visiting family in S. NJ - expecting 12-16" down here, had about 1" from today's clipper. We were planning to drive home tomorrow - guess that's not a wise idea, but the Forester ought to make it on Wednesday. I'd be satisfied with the current GYX forecast of 8-12" for S. Franklin; would be nice to be able to get into the driveway Wednesday evening.

Off topic ('cause it's NNE), but in the C.Maine New Year's Eve blizzard of 1962, a BGR plowtruck got paunched out near the old Pilot's Grill restaurant, then the 6-WD grader sent to rescue it got stuck, so they sent their large Cat dozer, and stuck that, too.

That event, like 5/9/77, 10/10/79, and the NNJ snows of late April '83/'86, showed how climo-capricious the very early/very late snows can be. Nary a flake in my Maine foothills BY, but as we headed to IL (granddaughter #3 arrival) on the 19th we saw snow OG at both ends of I-84, shady shoulders in N.CT and the hills east of Scranton, PA. Then, 2nd day after the snowfall, we saw considerable snow in the woods along I-80 in W.PA, along with some trees broken by leaf-on accum. Edit: Wonderful pics of 12/08; wish I some like it for 1/98 in Gardiner/AUG. THAT event was the most impactful wx of any kind I've experienced, and #2 just might be the NNJ ice storm exactly 45 years earlier. At least that 1953 storm is partly responsible for my lifelong interest in wx and trees. 12/08: I'm still not quite sure how/why MBY had the same rain (2", albeit after 4" snow) at the same 2m temps as ORH, yet escaped with 0.2" ice accretion and lots of cold puddles, but your dewpoint comment offers another clue - perhaps higher over MBY. I already think we had a thinner, if equally cold, sub-32 surface layer, so that the raindrops splashed in at less cool temps than down your way.

Lived in Ft. Kent then, and our March storm came on 14-15 after 10 days of mid-Jan cold. 26.5" (CAR had 29.0", their record until the 12/25-27/05 stall-out) with 65" OG - 80" up in the woods, each the most I've measured - IMBY/anywhere, respectively. (The 28-29 event never got to N.Maine.) We had 16" LE in Nov-Dec, and probably more than half of it was still on the ground on 12/31, with more piling up each week, except for the last half of Feb, when our 59" snowpack settled to 35" - not much melted. After the big March storm my snowpack held 16" LE, and I'm guessing the much deeper and equally solid snow NW of Allagash might've had 20". Unlike 2008, no April rain = no flooding that spring.

Weird, indeed. Midcoast Maine had two tornados (EF1 and EF0) on Thanksgiving, 2005, during a rather modest storm, 2-5" most places with some mixing along tidewater.

Farmington had -30 the morning of 1/27/94, then went up to 40 on the 28th, 4" snow followed by 1" RA. It's not often in the east one sees 70F change from one day to the next. Yet to experience a snowstorm in SNE; seen a few in NNJ and Maine. Those pics of 12/08 ice bring back memories of 1/1998. Damage IMBY looked somewhat similar, though other areas I saw then were even worse, and '98 sets the standard for widespread ice. I know of no other ice storm with anywhere near the areal coverage of that one.

From about 9A to 3P, that 1/14/08 radar had the nicest "banana" of 30-35 dbz curving from west of Sebago thru LEW and AUG to lower Penobscot Bay. It remained nearly stationary (the heavy precip area) for about 6 hr. AUG got 10" between 9:30 A and 2 P, at which time I headed to Farmington in 0.1 mile vis, because my wife had gotten rear-ended near home and then a meatwagon ride to the hosp. (She was fine except for back pain; fortunately all the sternum clips installed 3 months earlier during her bypass op held together.) The banana's north edge just grazed MBY - right when the accident occurred - for 8", while Farmington had only moderate SN and 5.5". Largest accum I found was 15.9" in Bridgton. GYX had 15". I know I've pimped these out before, but my April Fool's pics from eastern. Thanks, CoastalWx. If you hadn't, I was going to ask. Those are my favorite of all snow pics I've viewed here ("here" includes Eastern, of course), with LEK's monster snowblitz pics from 2006 or '07 as chief competition.