tamarack

I got this message when I tried to look up some past records this morning, and the same when I tried looking at my own data. Temporary glitch? Something new? Thanks Error You are trying to load a table of an unknown type. Probably you did not activate the addon which is required to use this table type.

Dec 2015 in NYC was 2.5° milder than the 2001-30 norm for Nov. However, Nov 2015 was +4.5, so no overlap. Surprise SN this morning, 1" by 7, another 1.5" by 8 and now north of 3". The grandkids finally saw some snow during their week here, ironically at the worst time for driving south. Their van has good "all-wx" tires (scare quotes mine) but needed some wood ashes to get up our driveway, then got stuck in 4" when off the highway to pick something up at Beans Corner Baptist. Fortunately, a farmer friend living 500 feet away brought up his tractor. Edit: GYX forecast for New Sharon. It's been quite a while since having that kind of good bust. Approaching 4" with only 1" before sunrise. Today Rain and snow showers before 1pm, then rain showers likely between 1pm and 4pm, then a chance of rain and snow showers after 4pm. High near 36. North wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. Tonight A 30 percent chance of snow showers, mainly before 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 24. Northwest wind around 5 mph.

Thru Jan 15, 2014, temps here were 5.0° BN, we'd had 3.46" total precip and 2.1" snow. That's a near impossible trifecta. Finished at 4.1° BN with 3.77" precip (0.55" AN) and 5.1" SN. The Farmington co-op recorded 130 Januarys 1893-2022, and Jan 2014's 4.0" ranks 129th. Three days of water-torture mank, total RA 0.86" thru 7 AM and still dripping. Last 2 days' temps 37/30 and 36/33. Average here for those days is 29/11.

Jackman Maine may have a pile of folks, too, with nowhere near the facilities or viewing sites to accommodate them all. Depending on wx (if it's overcast, maybe; serious snow - forget it), we may try the parking lots at Saddleback - farther from the center of totality but better chance for a parking space and for viewing. Nearby Quill Hill has a better view but limited space.

Power returned 5:05 last evening, a few minutes shy of 101 hours. And IIRC, CMP had called in ~200 out-of-state crews before Monday. The rain, warmth (unfrozen ground) and long duration wind did the damage. Change any of them and the results would've been less catastrophic.

That was a weird storm, though a nice one at our NNJ place - 8" with a thin ZR cap. We used to listen to Roxy Rothefel's ski report back then. No one in the family skiied but the north country wx was interesting. For that event, the report was lots of RA in Maine/eastern NH, big ice for the rest of NH and huge SN in VT. I later read of 30-foot drifts in the Greens. Two straight sunny days in late Dec - not all that common. The bare ground even less so.

Farther east Dec 2015 smashed the warmth records in most places. It's tops by 2.3° at my short-term records, but far more extreme at NYC. That month was 11.4° above average and 6.7° milder than the 2nd mildest Dec (2001). In fact, that 50.8° average was 2.5° above the 2001-30 norm for November. They recorded 3 CDDs on 12/24 that year - AC on Christmas Eve?

2020 is the near twin of this year, but worse because the Grinch arrived on 12/25, but less damaging as wind wasn't much of an issue inland. Also, that was 1-3" RA rather than 4-6". Almost no one lost power in the 2020 event, but we're still on genny, about 4 hours beyond our outage in Jan 1998. Only the 6-day dark from the Jan 1953 ice storm in the hills west/north from NYC was longer.

Coyote "packs" are usually just nuclear family groups, unlike wolves which often have multi-generations and packs far larger than the coyotes. Studies in northern Maine showed that deer are the major food only in late winter into spring, and a good portion of that diet is carrion, especially right after snowmelt. Snowshoe hare was tops in the summer (and in 2nd place at all other seasons), fruits/nuts tops in autumn. Coyotes are the classic opportunists, rarely taking adult deer without benefit of deep snow, but it can happen. Back when I lived in Fort Kent (76-85), coyote researchers in July saw from the air 3 adult coyotes just beginning to pull off skin from a big buck lying in Five Mile Brook, a shallow stony watercourse 30-40 feet wide. By the time they reached the site, only a half-eaten deer remained, with no pre-attack damage noted. They found coyote tracks up and down both sides of the brook and guessed that the predators happened upon the deer crossing the brook and chased it up and down the bad footing until it tripped. That table of Fort Kent snow depth on 12/21 doesn't agree with the data for the co-op that I've downloaded from Climod. For instance, 12/21/21 is shown with 5" at the co-op, not one. Maybe a different site in town? Though the co-op is at the water company right next to the Fish River, only a few feet higher than the St. John.

I'll give you 2020, as the mega-Grinch took the co-op down to zippo. All those other years they had 2"+ and 14", 18" for '16 and '17, respectively. The Christmas snow in 2017 only brought 2" but they had gotten 8" on the 23rd. (Their data has it on the 24th but their obs time is 7 AM. CAR shows that snow on 12/23.) '19, '21 were likely scratchy, especially in town and along the St. John, probably better above 1000'. Worth noting that the Outdoor Center is more than 400' higher than the co-op site, and seeing nothing but a few scattered patches on a north slope speaks loudly. Nearest cocorahs obs is PQI and they reported zero pack this morning.

In Fort Kent, where they host world class biathlon meets based from that outdoor center, it's desperate. Maybe one year in 50 they'll look like that 3 days before Christmas. I expected low singles for this morning, got low teens. Hit -8 twice shortly after the early month snowfall; bare ground equals mediocre cold.

77 and counting here. Longest by far since 1998, which was 95 hours - thankfully, nothing broke in the 400 feet from house to Brunswick Ave back then, or it would've over 300. We're 2,000 feet from power this time.

Only a short (May 17, 1998 on) POR here, but we've done better than that - temps as compared to the entire 26 DJFs. Average for those 8 winters is +1.6, fitting a warming climate, but 16-17 (-1.9), 17-18 (-2.6) and 21-22 (-0.3) prevented a shutout.

It certainly lowers the odds, even for NNE, but last January bucked the trend, with our mildest Jan of 26 (9° AN), 29.9" SN and the 8" on 1/1 became 22" by 1/31. Of course, when we got 12" early this month, I thought we'd keep pack into late March or April. 6.5" RA took care of that.

We went for the on-demand because we just got tired of camping out in our own house.

Just got a propane full-up, 79.6 gal at $4.099. genny has been running for 70 hours, and with the periodic 5-minute tests and a couple short outages since April, the gallon-per-hour estimate we were given seems to be working. Called CMP because a neighbor on our short road had read that the road had power restored - nope; Sat. 10 PM was the latest estimate. Burns a bit that folks on the tar road 2000 feet away got lit up last night, but with only 3 customers on our road, it's understandable. Bright blue 10-15 mph breeze, mid 20s. Would be a beautiful day were the ground white. Family scheduled to arrive tomorrow, though that's not firm, but when they get here things will look much like their home in SNJ. Sad

06-07 was the greatest Jekyll-Hyde (or Hyde-Jekyll) winter I remember anywhere. The incredibly abrupt change came on Jan 14. Prior to that Nov-Dec-Jan had been way AN for temps, especially Jan, with less than 1/3 of snowfall season-to-date. A couple of 5" events plus cold started the parade, then came VD-07 - "only" 15.5" because it was 8:1 cornmeal at low teens. Then the hits kept coming, topped by 18.5" on April 4-5. 88% of the season's 95.3" fell Jan 14 on. The 12.4" storm earlier this month was more snow than the 06-07 Hyde act.

Saw the exact same time for Starks Road in New Sharon.

Finally got wi-fi back - out since Monday night. Genny still running, and it may keep on into the weekend. Some of the worst tree damage I've seen is within 2 miles of our place, including 3 large and 2 medium trees dumped on our 0.4-mile gravel road, 3 fir, one basswood, one a sizable fork from a pine. Most I've run the chainsaw in years. A huge white ash (2 ft diam, 80 ft tall) along Starks Road (Rt 134) tipped from the side toward the river and across 134, stretching the phone cord to the ground and snapping both hot wires. We had winds probably gusting to 50+ from 10A to 2P on Monday in moderate/heavy RA, and the sustained blasts plus increasingly soggy ground led to the blowdowns. The only real cold came shortly after the 12" dump early this month, so essentially no frost in the ground. Total here was 4.21" here, while Farmington sites were 5+ and Temple's 6.01" is the highest I've seen. 2 inches or so mud on parking lots - Irving, McD, Walgreens this AM - looks like 3-4 ft of water at peak. Routte 2 was flooded in several places in New Sharon and Farmington; weeds caught in the bushes/fences show about 3 ft on that highway at peak. Some peak flow top-5s for the Kennebec drainage (K'bec records 1979 on, other 2 from the 1920s): Kennebec (N. Sidney) Sandy Carrabassett 1. 232,000 4/1987 51,100 4/1987 50,700 4/1987 2. 167,000 12/2023 42,900 12/2023 39,000 12/2023* 3. 113,000 6/1984 38,600 3/1936 35,500 5/2023 4. 113,000 5/2023 36,900 3/1953 31,600 8/2011 5. 111,000 4/1979 31,300 5/2023 30,800 3/1936 * The Carrabassett gauge hit that 39k at 7:30 PM on Monday with the river still rising, then had no readings until 3:30 PM yesterday with the flow at <15k.

That 39k flow on the Carrabassett was an error. 20 minutes later the site showed 30.2k, though still rising. Probably was 29k earlier. Still gusting 30+ but the heavy RA may be done - unless something develops upstream.

The Carrabassett set a new #2 peak flow of 35.3k cfs on May 1. When I checked the USGS website 15 minutes ago, the flow was 39k with no sign of the curve flexing. I doubt it will reach the 50.7 of 1987 but . . . The much slower Sandy was a bit over 20k. On spring RA/snowmelt events, the Sandy usually has the greater flow, but on flash flood events, the 'Bassett "wins" - by 4k last May and more than double the flow of the Sandy from Irene. Sad report from Windham - a man was clearing branches from his roof when a big part of a pine fell on him, fatally.

Raise them 50% then cut by 5%? Wind is significantly less than at midday but the RA continues.

Peak gusts here were 10 AM thru 2 PM, and I'm guessing they reached 50. As I was walking back from the "marooned" pickup, and back and forth with the chainsaw, I kept looking up with every gust. Got hit with some twigs and heard a big fir break near the yard, but otherwise no harm - except the most thorough soaking in many years. (The 40+ year-old rain jacket wasn't up to the task, plus the wind was ripping open the Velcro.)

Fifth big (3.25"+) since October of last year. The 2020 Grinch set a new Dec precip mark, broken by 3.25" on 12/23/22, and the current storm looks to finish 4"+. The local tree damage ranks with the 2005 TS and is far above any previous leaf-off event here, even Oct 2017.

Reported 3.62" to GYX at 3:45 with more to come. Also noted that 3 trees (and significant parts of 2 more) landed on a 200-yard stretch of our 0.4-mile road. (Must have sounded like "yard" not "road" to GYX, as the former is what's on their site.) Those 3 across the road were 2 big fir and one big basswood. The smaller of the fir is up against the wires and I left it alone, for now, but was able to clear enough of the others to allow passage. Unfortunately, both my wife and I were out when the bigger fir toppled, and our vehicles are parked out near the tar road. When things dry out, and if no one has attacked the on-wire tree, I'll probably walk down and take a whack at it tomorrow. My next-door neighbor has a big red maple crushing the rear corner of the garage and an equally big (15" diameter and 70 feet tall) black cherry that just missed the house but utterly destroyed the gazebo and messed up the service entry. Fortunately, she has a genny similar to ours. Wild River at Gilead peaked above 30k CFS - I wonder if it was running across Rt 2 at peak. It was down to 17.4k when I looked about 4. Both the Sandy at Mercer and the Carrabassett at North Anson are above flood and climbing, and the Sandy upriver at Madrid is at near record flow so the Mercer gauge has "miles to go".