Coast and Mountains

[Newdaawn]

I have to disagree with Acadian. We very rarely get 5 months of harsh winter. There may be several weeks of severe cold but rarely more than 2 or 3 days in a row. Many winters are actually mild - open winters - but most of us manage to get outside some. If you like Xctry skiing or snowmobiling all the better.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Newdaawn

I have to disagree with Acadian. We very rarely get 5 months of harsh winter. There may be several weeks of severe cold but rarely more than 2 or 3 days in a row. Many winters are actually mild - open winters - but most of us manage to get outside some. If you like Xctry skiing or snowmobiling all the better.

I agree.

From what I have observed here in the past 5 years, a 2 or 3 day long storm is very severe weather and rare.

Usually a storm blows through in a day, and is followed by 4 to 6 days of calm. Before the next storm arrives.

[Acadianlion]

Forest, with all due respect, 5 years isn't a valid sampling. The reason Maine winters are so severe is not necessarily because of all the snow and cold that we get. Rather it is because of the severity and variety of weather that we get due to our geographic position and the influence of the Gulf of Maine.

The first winter that I spent in Maine, we had a lot of snow, and for nearly two months we had what I would describe "severe" cold. I define severe cold as being below freezing and below zero during the day time. That first winter we had nearly two weeks of days when the temp didn't rise much above the single numbers, and I was parking my truck in the neighbor's yard and snow shoeing through the woods to get home.

Since that time, I have seen cold, snow, but rarely cold AND snow to equal that winter here. Last winter we almost had the snow but not quite. That first winter the road in here from the town road drifted in so severely that my neighbor was unable to plow it open and had to arrange for a small bulldozer to open the road.

Last winter we had a lot of snow. It came early and stayed late. It wasn't terribly cold, but we did get snow. Three winters ago it was largely open until well in to January, and we never got a LOT of snow.

It is true that Maine winters aren't "arctic circle" winters. It is also true that from time to time we get relatively little "real" winter. But if winter starts with the first hard freeze as early as hallowe'en, and the real chance of freezing pipes and measurable snow beginning in November, that is good enough for me to call winter severe.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Acadianlion

Forest, with all due respect, 5 years isn't a valid sampling.

Okay, I can see that.

I was expecting to be seeing serious winters when we moved to Maine.

Folks on here do tend to make it sounds like serious winters happen in Maine. But you are likely correct. My sampling is not enough to have experienced one yet.

How many years should it take, on average before a 'true' Maine winter finally happens? So a person coming to Maine can know how long it takes to finally see one of these beasts?

I understand now. thank you

[Maineah]

I agree with Acadianlion here too. Five years is not representative of the weather in Maine and especially the last five years. I'd say we are getting closer since 2007 to what winter used to be like when I was a kid but it's still no where near as cold as it was back in the 60's 70's and early 80's
We sat in my truck in the snowless field at Christmas time with the temperature hovering around 50 degrees in 2005. I had never seen it so warm in winter. We had several years between 2002 and 2006 that we could not put our smelt shack on the ice due to a lack of ice. This was a far cry from the winters in the late 70's where Casco Bay (yes salt water) froze all the way out to Chebeague Island solid enough to drive a car on. For several winters we rode snowmobiles and cross country skied on the frozen salt water bays around Yarmouth and Freeport. There were even reports of people driving cars from Chebeague Island to Falmouth over the ice. We're talking SALT WATER here so you know it was extremely cold to freeze it solid. I remember one Christmas in 1979 or 1980 where it was 29 below zero on Christmas Day and only rose to 25 below zero the whole day. It was not uncommon for it to stay BELOW ZERO for twenty to thirty days in January and February. In the early 70's we would have snow storms that dumped four feet of snow in two days and then top it off with a layer of ice. I remember walking over 3 inch thick crust where if you broke through the snow was up to your neck! We would be out of school for three or four days straight before they got the roads plowed enough to run the busses. I also remember staying in school extra days in June to make up for all of the snow days we would have in a winter. Gardiner had to do that last year! It runs in cycles. People told us about how hard the winters were in the 30's and 40's here. Then they got mild for a while. We're seeing the beginning of a cycle that will make the winters longer, colder and snowier than they have been in the last 15 years or so. The past two winters were a taste. If we get the cold combined with the amount of moisture we have seen in this past spring and summer you'll see snow on the ground in June. I've seen snow on the ground in June! Don't be fooled by the past several years, Maine does not have a reputation for severe winters for nothing!

[dmyankee]

I have hears climatologists talk of solar minimums and lack of El Nino or El Nina.

When we first moved up in the mid 80's, there were several winters of 2'+, weekly storms and temps at 20-40 below during January and February. We just had a near normal winter this last one. Lots of cold and snow. Before the winter of 2007-08, we had several years of winter drought, sometimes cold, sometimes not. We even had to cancel snowmobile events for lack of snow these seasons. We even went as far as trucking snow out to the railroad bed for the annual Craven charity ride.

So, I would say the last five years are not a good indicator of winter weather. Forrest, your farm might be located in a vortex (cue the Twilight Zone theme.) Could explain why there are so many atypical bucks down your way! At least you have the tractor and bucket, just in case.

[Acadianlion]

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

Okay, I can see that.

I was expecting to be seeing serious winters when we moved to Maine.

Folks on here do tend to make it sounds like serious winters happen in Maine. But you are likely correct. My sampling is not enough to have experienced one yet.

How many years should it take, on average before a 'true' Maine winter finally happens? So a person coming to Maine can know how long it takes to finally see one of these beasts?

I understand now. thank you

I dunno. That first winter as a Mainer for me was 1977-78. I left Cape Cod with temps in the upper seventies on April 30th and we got four inches of snow in the yard here the next morning. That next winter was something that I had never seen before, having not been in Maine for more than a few days visiting my retired parents in Belfast in the few years before that.

Union River Bay was frozen from the Spindle to Oak Point almost all of that winter, and the ice that popped up on the rocks down on the shore when the tide was out, was more than three feet thick. I believed the old timers' stores about how cars had driven across the bay from Contention Cove to Trenton in the "old days".

But I haven't seen that much ice since, although once of twice the bay has frozen over. Last winter it did not, but some of that has to do with the amount of water that is let through the hydro electric dam in Ellsworth, too.

Perhaps Maine's definition of "severe" winter has to do with the vagaries of it. It is impossible to know what Maine's winter will bring, and it seems to me, one definition of financial suicide is being a ski resort owner in Maine. The vagaries of Maine's winters make investing in skiing here like a shooting crap on a table that is always tilting.

So, when will we get another "real" Maine winter? I dunno. Maybe never, maybe this year will be a big one. One thing is pretty obvious to me, Forest, and that is you will undoubtedly relish and flourish in it. Your travels and experiences have given you a positive and enthusiastic outlook and those things are the basics for being a true "Mainer": one who takes what comes and deals with it.