Perry wrote:
103 degrees in the Portland, Maine area... I was out in the middle of
Sebago Lake at the time, and it felt hotter than that (but at least
we could jump off the boat into the water)! I think it was August
2nd in 1975. I know it's the record for the hottest day in Maine,
and it was hotter elsewhere-- I think New Bedford set its record at
107.

It was certainly unheard of in Maine. We think of SNE as a hot region
compared with ours, but that day was cruel. Official 102 in Bar Harbor and
at the Acadia National Park observation station. 1975 was the first year I
was aware that "things may not be what they used to be" even though I was
only 23 at the time. Succeeding decades have done LITTLE to dispell this
early suspicion of mine. (Sorry, at 52 I now have a larger time span to
reckon with) I remember how suddenly things heated up that morning as I left
Bar Harbor for work in the park, a rather routine thermal layer which
surrounds the village on warm summer mornings busted thru in barely a
second of wind gust, then the awful deadness of heat for the rest of the
day. My grandmother, who finally did live into her late 90's, said that day
that she never thought she'd live to see a hundred, meaning the temp, for
once, and not a possible age. A real Maine woman from further north and east
than here, she considered 90 extremely rare and over the top.

An un-predicted backdoor put the ki-bash on this before the next
morning---ruturning us to lighting fires and dealing with the murky
conditions which so far have made this spring a little unpalatable, but,
backdooring never looked so good!

Like several others here, I have experienced severe heat in interior
California, when we lived in Yosemite and had to drop down to the flatlands
for supplies occasionally. Fresno at 114. And recently I learned how hot the
Great Plains can be as we head west, 106 wind-driven degrees in Wall, South
Dakota. Real freak show for us Mainers heading for Yellowstone, but at least
dry, and more like sitting too close to the woodstove on a winter's night.
Eastern HHH really sucks---for now Maine is avoiding it, but I can't imagine
we'll really get thru to September without at least some high 80's and all
the rest.

Now back to my soggy, 43 degree spring activity in the mossy, drippy murk.


Personal site with eastern Maine and Yellowstone 2000 photos; new
Lamoine web cam: http://www.lamoine.dns2go.com/ Albums of Winter 2004
ice, winter work, and Yellowstone 2002:
http://community.webshots.com/user/plantplanman