tamarack

Outside of red maple in the swamps, any serious color this early is on stressed trees. Absolutely perfect day yesterday as 2 young men (ages 10 and 14) were baptized at Porter Pond, north from Farmington. Bright sun, little wind, mid 70s.

Every wood species burns far better when seasoned, but if I had to cut one day and burn the next, white ash would be the clear choice. I've read that in NNE, red spruce would be the 2nd choice - crummy heat value but has the lowest water content of any tree native to the region. Very little on our woodlot and I prize all of it. Also, there's white ash that's handy to the road. I don't think black cherry was listed on the burn-green table I saw several decades back, but it would be a contender, likely a better moisture/BTU ratio than the spruce. When we lived in town at our first house, I cut down 3 balsam poplars, and since they landed in the yard they went thru a stove. We'd never load it into the little Jotul 602 on our center chimney upstairs, which would furnish at temps down to about -20 in our 18x20 foot 2-story. We had an old $20 parlor stove (cheap even in 1978) in the basement, not quite as leaky as a lobster trap, and all the balsam poplar went thru that thing on the coldest mornings. Splitting the stuff made me wish for safety glasses with windshield wipers, as water splattered with every strike of the maul.

From the firewood poem: "Ash wood green or ash wood dry; a king shall lay his slippers by." Comment on burning balsam poplar when it's green, from an Allagash logger, "You couldn't afford to buy the oil it would take to burn balm'o'Gilead!"

Jeans are my non-formal pants in all seasons. I beat up my arms enough while working on firewood or walking in Maine's thick woods. Shorts would just result in additional blood loss. 2nd consecutive sunny day. Last time we had that - without smoke - was in April. Ash tree? Or maple? White ash - bark and the mineral stain on the unsplit pieces tell the tale.

Compared to Sandy's 90° turn, the others merely avoided the recurve. Another similarity is that all 4 came somewhat late in the TC season.

Even when the loss is not much of a surprise, the hurt is deep. My parents passed more than 30 years ago. I still miss them but also have some wonderful memories. May your memories provide some solace.

With great scenery and good attractions, rain is tolerable. Every one of our 8 August days in Norway 7 years back had some rain and 2 were all-day rains but we had a wonderful time. The one in Oslo was fortunately our planned museum day. The rain started with sunrise thunder and became a mid-50s downpour in late afternoon as we waited 45 (not nice) minutes outside the Viking Museum until the right bus arrived. The rainy day in Bergen (which calls itself the rainiest city in Europe) was quite light and only made the coffee taste better. Full sun this morning, first time in almost 2 weeks to see that at 7 AM. Have not checked the max-min but suspect it dipped under 50. Since today's average here is 74/52, that's not unusual.

The other differences are the longer hind legs and furry "snowshoe" feet of the lynx, the former being much easier to spot. They are slowly replacing bobcats north to south in Maine, with both species occurring on the same range mostly at the line of advance. When we lived in Fort Kent (76-85) only bobcats were being trapped there. Those golf course animals look like bob-kittens.

Six days with lots of clouds and forecasts of significant rain. What we got was six days averaging 68/56 and a whole 0.11", not enough to make a puddle. We don't really need the rain, but if it's going to be cool and cloudy, I wish it would do something. "Pee or get off the pot" as the old saying goes.

That's a dandy, no limbs on the first log and the bark indicates it's not all that old (100-120?) for a 34.4" dbh tree. Our 2 dozen or so pines near the road are 20-30" dbh and 100-120' tall. Unfortunately, the Dec 18 storm reduced 2 of those to 60-foot "masts" with a couple weak-looking branches near the breaks. There's a limby 40"+ monster just to the neighbor's side of the boundary stone wall back in the woods, probably a sentinel retained when the high-quality pines were harvested. Nice oblique pic of your woods. Doesn't seem to have much oak, which is a bit surprising, but a nice puckle of pine in the middle.

As you already know, departures are greatest in the cold months and the difference is large. Our greatest August daily departures are +13 and -14. For December it's +28 and -36.

PWM averages high 60s, and Brunswick would be a bit above that - farther NE and its airport isn't right on tidewater. Like most of SNE, PWM's snow has been pitiful this decade, running in the 40s. If he's entering Bowdoin, check out the nearby Bowdoin Pines. Not true old growth but very impressive. Cloudy night kept temps above 50 instead of that SNE fake cold.

I had just begun my freshman year when Donna roared thru, and 1960-61 reached triple digits at my place, though the Feb 3-4 storm was estimate only (24") thanks to the wild winds. Depth increases at nearby sites point to at least that much. Essentially nothing thru 12/10, then: 18" Dec 11-12; 20" Jan 19-20; 24" Feb 3-4 plus a surprise paste bomb (12") on 3/23. Messy snows into mid-April and a few IP seen on 5/27. From March 18-19, 1956 thru Feb. 3-4, 1961 we saw 7 storms of 18" or greater. Even Fort Kent can't begin to touch that. Closest is at our current place, Jan 2015 thru March 2018, with 6 storms of 15.5" to 21", but that run has 4 years before and 4 after without reaching even 14".

Also had significant flooding from Connie's 5-7" but missed even more by a whisker as Diane was 2-3" here, far more to the north and west. We were let go from school at noon during Donna and I went down to the local beach - good place to watch the whitecaps and not much rain was falling. A guy several years older went out in his Sailfish (sailboard that was a teens favorite) and promptly watched his mast get snapped.

I'm glad we have forced hot water (domestic hot water and back-up to the Jotul) as I'm usually full of hot air. Sun tried to burn thru the clouds about 1:30 but it's back in hiding.

We've had 6 sub-60 maxima in 26 Augusts here, and all but one had significant RA. Now concerned for flash flooding from last night's 0.06", barely missing a classic 7-10 as the heavier rain avoided the Route 2 corridor from Bethel to Lincoln. We don't really need lots of rain as August 24 is already a half inch above the average, but nighttime lightning is fun to watch.

That works with equal sunshine, as that's what runs the factories, and a day of 77/55 is likely to have more hours of sun than 70/62. You can already envision the early morning posts from the usual suspects. 48.2.. Feels great.. windows wide open .. hoodie on in August .. 50.8 for the low so far… hoping to sneak into upper 40’s 44.2 .. coldest since last May .. pool temp down to 69 47.6 .. gonna be chilly in the wood yard SLK down to 34.2 Chilly day at 3k hiking with the dog today..bluebird skies but hoodie required even in mid afternoon GYX discussion this afternoon included the possibility of WCI's near freezing on the summits of the Whites tomorrow, cautioning hikers not to dress for the base conditions.

I think it's about 1.2° milder than the 1991-2020 normal at 1k. For PF: Our current +0.9° divides to maxima at -1.5 and minima at +3.4, almost 5° lower than the average diurnal range.

We're not as far inland as PF, but the western Maine foothills aren't quite on tidewater and we're at +0.9 thru yesterday. The mild minima this morning will probably push that to +1 or 1.1 but Tues-Thurs look to run 3-5° BN, which will move the average to about +0.3. We'll likely finish between average to +1.5. (Note: Our records begin in May 1998, thus do not include the Pinatubo cooldown that's part of the 1991-2020 norms. Might make a 0.5° difference.)

Sun making its occasional appearance, driving temp to low 70s after 4 days topping out between 67 and 71. TD mid-upper 60s, feels stuffy as we'd had 2 weeks of lower dews.

Even some of the fertile farmlands southwest from the pine barrens are growing McMansions (for millionaires) instead of tomatoes and peaches.

As predicted by CC models, many places are getting frequent huge rain events. The Sandy River has 95 years of flow records, and both #2 and #5 came last year - April 1987 still is tops. And the 6/29/23 localized toad-strangler wrecked many miles of roads in southern Franklin County when 4-6" fell in <2 hours. The 3 wettest December days here were 18/23, 23/22 and 25/20. Five of our 12 wettest days came 2020 thru 2023, compared to 7 in our first 22 years here. (So far, "wettest" day in 2024 is 2.18" on Jan 10, 9" snow followed by lots of RA, only time in 26 winters we had to have our driveway plowed - snowblower would clog every 4-5 feet. Still time for a biggie this year.)

Wind damage from Gloria and from Bob was similar (extensive but not catastrophic) in Maine, but Bob had far more rain here. PWM recorded 1.3" from Gloria and 8.2" from Bob, still the city's 2nd rainiest event, behind the 12"+ from the October 1996 northeast storm. In September 1985 I'd just started working for Public Lands and was commuting weekly from Fort Kent to Augusta. Governor Brennan closed state offices at noon that Friday, so I was able to drive north in daylight. In FK it was just a strong fall storm, with about 1.5" and modest wind. Bob is the only TC in my experience that had backside NW winds as strong as the SE, though 95% of the rain came before the wind shift. A stand of tall bigtooth aspen at the Hebron public lot, ~10 miles NW from LEW, was 2/3 flattened, 1/3 pointing NW and 1/3 pointing SE. We had 6.41" at our (then) Gardiner home, greatest one-day precip I've measured (2nd was 6" from Belle in FK, August 1976) and 2nd highest for 24 hours behind the 8.9" from the PRE plus Doria in August 1971.

Another 12/20 mega-Grinch?

About the same here, should finish about 70/60 against an average of 75/53. Cloudy thru 2 PM with enough early mist to wet the gravel in the driveway, then some filtered sunny breaks though it's cloudy again.