NNE Warm Season Thread 2020

[mreaves]

48 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Lift installation teams are a whole other sort of cowboy.  That's some serious stuff for the two guys on the tower while the helo brings in the tower tops/catwalks.

After watching that, I don't think I'm applying any time soon.

[Angus]

Spectacular sunrise in central NH lakes region. Small white caps now heading down the lake - north to south and cool. Feels like Fall.

[tamarack]

On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2020 at 7:34 PM, Angus said:

Spent a week plus in Norway two summers ago, mostly in mountains and fjords. Absolutely spectacular. Would love to spend a winter ski touring there.

Edit- would say the same for Iceland which I visited three summers ago.

We had 2 days in Iceland on the way to our time in Norway, though we never got farther than the Golden Circle tour.  Spectacular scenery but in a different way than Norway and this forester would chafe at the scarcity of trees taller than 5 feet.  On that GC tour the host said, "If you're lost in an Iceland forest, stand up!"

[tamarack]

12 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Lift installation teams are a whole other sort of cowboy.  That's some serious stuff for the two guys on the tower while the helo brings in the tower tops/catwalks.

Probably less hazardous than that but still risky, Public Lands had new cabs placed by helicopter atop 3 existing fire towers in northern Maine, Allagash Mountain (near Allagash Lake), Round Pond Mountain and Deboullie.  Folks on the towers had to help guide the placements and do the fastening - glad I wasn't one of them.  When the next Parks and Lands newsletter comes out, probably next week, it will include pics.
The Round Pond tower has an interesting (and kind of silly) history.  Some users of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway objected vigorously to seeing that manmade object as they crossed the pond.  So Maine Forest service was tasked to get rid of it and did so the easy "redneck" way - remove the hold-down bolts on one side, place a stick of dynamite next to those 2 corners, easy-peasey.  Of course, the next year other AWW travelers said that it was terrible that a piece of history had been destroyed by those dumb state people.  That resulted in the no-longer-used Depot Mountain tower on T13R16 (a border twp 25 miles to the west) being carefully disassembled and moved to Round Pond, at slightly more expense than was needed to blow the original tower off the summit.  (There's an old fable about a man trying to please everybody but ending up by pleasing nobody.)

[NW_of_GYX]

55 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Probably less hazardous than that but still risky, Public Lands had new cabs placed by helicopter atop 3 existing fire towers in northern Maine, Allagash Mountain (near Allagash Lake), Round Pond Mountain and Deboullie.  Folks on the towers had to help guide the placements and do the fastening - glad I wasn't one of them.  When the next Parks and Lands newsletter comes out, probably next week, it will include pics.
The Round Pond tower has an interesting (and kind of silly) history.  Some users of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway objected vigorously to seeing that manmade object as they crossed the pond.  So Maine Forest service was tasked to get rid of it and did so the easy "redneck" way - remove the hold-down bolts on one side, place a stick of dynamite next to those 2 corners, easy-peasey.  Of course, the next year other AWW travelers said that it was terrible that a piece of history had been destroyed by those dumb state people.  That resulted in the no-longer-used Depot Mountain tower on T13R16 (a border twp 25 miles to the west) being carefully disassembled and moved to Round Pond, at slightly more expense than was needed to blow the original tower off the summit.  (There's an old fable about a man trying to please everybody but ending up by pleasing nobody.)

I just spend 10 days on chamberlain and eagle lakes and could see the Round Pond cab reflecting sunlight all the way from from the south end of Eagle. I didn't realize there was a tower on Depot. I used to work that part of the woods down the Depot Rd to the Realty Rd. Lonely stretch of woods these days with Moody bridge gone and Daaquam crossing shuttered. 

[NW_of_GYX]

On 8/18/2020 at 7:34 PM, Angus said:

Spent a week plus in Norway two summers ago, mostly in mountains and fjords. Absolutely spectacular. Would love to spend a winter ski touring there.

Edit- would say the same for Iceland which I visited three summers ago.

We did a late May trip around Sognefjord a few year ago. The ski touring was incredible that time of year with the treeline so low and everything over 2000' still covered in deep pack. Plus it as in the 60's every day with no bugs and low dews. I was and am still amazed that Norway is not more of an international destination for ski touring. The Lyngen Alps have gotten some attention lately but further south the terrain and snow make for very accessible and low consequence touring opportunities. 

[tamarack]

32 minutes ago, NW_of_GYX said:

I just spend 10 days on chamberlain and eagle lakes and could see the Round Pond cab reflecting sunlight all the way from from the south end of Eagle. I didn't realize there was a tower on Depot. I used to work that part of the woods down the Depot Rd to the Realty Rd. Lonely stretch of woods these days with Moody bridge gone and Daaquam crossing shuttered. 

The Depot-to-Round Pond fracas was nearly 40 years ago.  You're the first person I've read about on this forum who worked in that country, making me a bit curious.  Used to be no thru roads from the Blanchet Road to Reality west of the St. John, so I've not seen that burntland country.

[NW_of_GYX]

2 hours ago, tamarack said:

The Depot-to-Round Pond fracas was nearly 40 years ago.  You're the first person I've read about on this forum who worked in that country, making me a bit curious.  Used to be no thru roads from the Blanchet Road to Reality west of the St. John, so I've not seen that burntland country.

I had occasion to work that way several times for a former employer. Hard to believe at one point that was a bustling area with the bridge at Nine Mile and lumber camps at Seven Islands. 

[tamarack]

2 hours ago, NW_of_GYX said:

I had occasion to work that way several times for a former employer. Hard to believe at one point that was a bustling area with the bridge at Nine Mile and lumber camps at Seven Islands. 

Both the bridge and the camps/farms were history when we moved to Fort Kent in 1976, though I think it was about then when Robinson Lumber salvaged the bridge steel.  At one time the settlement at Seven Islands was sufficiently large and prosperous that, looking back in the late 1970s, the state held that the township (T13R15) had once been organized.  If so, the 1,000-acre public lot would have gone to the town and with de-organization, back to the state.  The PL was unlocated with the timber and grass rights long since sold to the Pingree heirs - forests managed by Seven Islands Land Company.  If that org/de-org had indeed occurred, the Pingrees would've owed the state one-23rd of all timber revenue for the years following the organization of the town.  At first 7-I was told to cease harvesting on 13-15, at a time when spruce budworm was killing millions of trees.  Instead, the budworm-salvage revenues from there were placed in an escrow account pending the result of research on possible organization.  The state-Pingree trade in 1984 made it moot, with a bunch of public lots both located and unlocated going to the Pingrees and large acreage going to the state, including what is now Parks and Lands' Eagle Lake and Richardson tracts.

[NW_of_GYX]

11 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Both the bridge and the camps/farms were history when we moved to Fort Kent in 1976, though I think it was about then when Robinson Lumber salvaged the bridge steel.  At one time the settlement at Seven Islands was sufficiently large and prosperous that, looking back in the late 1970s, the state held that the township (T13R15) had once been organized.  If so, the 1,000-acre public lot would have gone to the town and with de-organization, back to the state.  The PL was unlocated with the timber and grass rights long since sold to the Pingree heirs - forests managed by Seven Islands Land Company.  If that org/de-org had indeed occurred, the Pingrees would've owed the state one-23rd of all timber revenue for the years following the organization of the town.  At first 7-I was told to cease harvesting on 13-15, at a time when spruce budworm was killing millions of trees.  Instead, the budworm-salvage revenues from there were placed in an escrow account pending the result of research on possible organization.  The state-Pingree trade in 1984 made it moot, with a bunch of public lots both located and unlocated going to the Pingrees and large acreage going to the state, including what is now Parks and Lands' Eagle Lake and Richardson tracts.

Wow that's some interesting history I had no idea about!

[Angus]

@tamarackYou got me googling the Seven Islands Land Cos. and the Pingrees, fascinating part of Maine history. My grandfather was a Maine State Congressman around the 1917 and 1919 sessions. He died before I had much interest in this sort of thing but my grandmother later told me that his summation of his public service in Augusta was  'frustrating.' She said the big lumber companies held all the power at that time in the state and getting anything done legislatively went nowhere if it was not in the timber cos. interests. Of course, he was there to do the bidding of his families' business interest! 

[powderfreak]

Gotta love life in the mountains.

[tamarack]

On ‎8‎/‎27‎/‎2020 at 10:30 AM, Angus said:

@tamarackYou got me googling the Seven Islands Land Cos. and the Pingrees, fascinating part of Maine history. My grandfather was a Maine State Congressman around the 1917 and 1919 sessions. He died before I had much interest in this sort of thing but my grandmother later told me that his summation of his public service in Augusta was  'frustrating.' She said the big lumber companies held all the power at that time in the state and getting anything done legislatively went nowhere if it was not in the timber cos. interests. Of course, he was there to do the bidding of his families' business interest! 

In the early 1970s, Ralph Nader's group published a book called "The Paper Plantation" which portrayed Maine's mill owners as acting like antebellum slave-holding plantations in the south.  ironically, the stumpage contract the authors chose as one evidence of logger "bondage" was one from Seven Islands, which then had no mills - Maine Hardwoods in Portage was 30 years in the future.  Pretty standard contract stating the responsibilities of landowner and logger, including that the landowner had full right to determine which trees would be cut.  Not sure why that would be objectionable.

[Angus]

I once stumbled on a book, now lost, that was written around the same time that was an examination of issues confronting Maine economically ... reading it in mid 2000's, I was struck how nothing had much changed in 30 years. I have looked for the book many time - Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote the forward from book from Sugarloaf is all I remember.

[tamarack]

11 minutes ago, Angus said:

I once stumbled on a book, now lost, that was written around the same time that was an examination of issues confronting Maine economically ... reading it in mid 2000's, I was struck how nothing had much changed in 30 years. I have looked for the book many time - Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote the forward from book from Sugarloaf is all I remember.

Actually quite a lot has changed since "Paper Plantation" though perhaps the legislative clout less than most things.  Back then most of the large landowners also had mills; Seven Islands and Prentiss & Carlisle were the major exceptions.  The "earthquake" began when Great Northern sold its 2 mills and 2.2 million acres (about twice the next largest landholding) to Georgia Pacific in 1992.  Over the next 15+ years the land/mill vertical structure essentially disappeared, with the land ownership going to Timber Investment Management Organizations (first was John Hancock, deciding that their funds would earn more that way than in the stock market) and Real Estate Investment Trusts.  Whatever one thought of how IP, Scott, GNP managed the forest, those companies' biggest investments were the mills so they managed the woodlands for the long term.  The newer entities generally looked at a 10-year horizon (plus/minus) and would often cash out at the end of that period, with establishment of desirable forest regeneration beyond their investment time and thus not on their radar.  The land still grows trees but a short financial horizon is unlikely to produce a diverse forest.  

[powderfreak]

The clouds this evening were wild... undercast and very fluid-looking like water running over rocks. 

[borderwx]

Slightly different this morning on Jay...

 

[backedgeapproaching]

Looking at cocorahs, seems to be a relatively dry summer at most VT stations for JJA. A few near 15", but also a good amount under 10"(those that have submitted 80+reports)

Then Rutland 1.2N sticks out with only 5.84" through JJA, thats pretty damn dry, not quite BDL level, but still.

[alex]

We need a new thread lol. It doesn’t feel like the warm season at all out there! Windy cloudy cold and drizzly

[mreaves]

11 minutes ago, alex said:

We need a new thread lol. It doesn’t feel like the warm season at all out there! Windy cloudy cold and drizzly

55°/46° with wind out of the NW 14 gusting 31. 

[PhineasC]

15.06" of rain JJA for Randolph according to my weather station.

CoCoRaHS site had 14.63"

[Angus]

Wind was howling in the Pemi today. Started a Bond Traverse at midnite and was getting knocked around on Guyot at 5am. Going across Bondcliff was tough.

[powderfreak]

On 8/30/2020 at 8:01 PM, Angus said:

Wind was howling in the Pemi today. Started a Bond Traverse at midnite and was getting knocked around on Guyot at 5am. Going across Bondcliff was tough.

Midnight hike start?  Awesome dude.  Props.

[alex]

Heat going on tonight. The sun is starting to lose some heating power so the house has less less warmth to start with. Currently 47

[wxmanmitch]

15.12" of rain for meteorological summer. That drought was a bunch of fake news, lol. 

Average temperature was 64.1° F, low was 30.8° F on 6/1, high was 84.8° F on 7/19. Now onto fall and winter...

 

 

[J.Spin]

Liquid Totals

August: 4.63” (+0.63”)

Jun-Jul-Aug: 14.76” (-1.04”)

Calendar Year: 34.42” (-1.29”)

Water Year: 49.52” (-0.17”)

 

With August finishing up, I see folks are getting their liquid totals in, so I’ve got the data for our site listed above.  This August was actually the second wettest in my records going back to 2010, so it certainly can’t be considered overly dry around here right now. All the totals above are running within ± roughly an inch from my averages, so they’re pretty typical.

[tamarack]

August numbers:

Avg. max:  74.61   0.30 BN.  Warmest was 86 on the 11th, coolest 55 on the 29th - tied with 8/29/09 for month's coolest max.
Avg. min:  53.52    0.81 AN.  Coolest was 38 on the 28th, mildest 66 on the 12th.
Avg. mean:  64.06  0.25 AN.  Was running +3 thru the 1st 2 weeks.  Warmest mean was 74 on the 12th, coolest 52 on the 29th.

Precip:  1.79"   2.18" BN.   Greatest one-day:  0.90" on the 29th.  Had 0.71" from Isaias on the 4th-5th, thus 0.18" for the other 28 days.  1 TS, tied for lowest

Met summer:
Avg. temp:  64.45   1.26 AN.  4th warmest of 23.  Warmest: 65.78 in 1999; coolest 61.24 in 2009.  Hottest day:  90 on 6/20; coolest: 27 on 6/1.

Precip:  11.82"   1.37" BN.  8.33" (70%) fell June 28-July 14.  Wettest was 23.82" in 2009 (of course), driest was 7.24" in 2002.  Greatest one-day: 1.98" on 6/30

[Patriot21]

Hi guys,

Just wanted to introduce myself,  my name is Jake and I live in Vermont. I've been monitoring these forums for about a year or so. I'm not very knowledgeable about how weather operates, but I've always been interested in it and especially the microclimates of Northern New England. I wanted to let you guys know I got my first frost yesterday morning. I didn't get out to my outside thermometer until about 7 am yesterday, it read 34 at that time, may have gotten a little lower though. I believe I radiate well in my spot as I have hills on either side of me and a gradual upslope behind the house. Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I will try to give weather updates as the fall and winter begin. 

Jake

[mreaves]

29 minutes ago, Patriot21 said:

Hi guys,

Just wanted to introduce myself,  my name is Jake and I live in Vermont. I've been monitoring these forums for about a year or so. I'm not very knowledgeable about how weather operates, but I've always been interested in it and especially the microclimates of Northern New England. I wanted to let you guys know I got my first frost yesterday morning. I didn't get out to my outside thermometer until about 7 am yesterday, it read 34 at that time, may have gotten a little lower though. I believe I radiate well in my spot as I have hills on either side of me and a gradual upslope behind the house. Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I will try to give weather updates as the fall and winter begin. 

Jake

Welcome Jake. Where in VT do you live? Sounds like the NEK if you had a frost yesterday. I’m in Barre Town and think we touched 38°. 

[Patriot21]

Hi mreaves, thank you for the welcome. I am in West Topsham, so not far from you and am bordering the NEK. I hope to get the wife and kids further north when I'm done working. My oldest daughter loves the cold. I tried to attach some pictures of the frost but the files are too large. Saw some wood stoves burning yesterday morning and randomly throughout the last two weeks.