The Wrack

High sustained winds and very large waves, both aligning with high tide, created a perfect storm on December 23, 2022.

The January 18, 2022, storm left its mark, but could have been worse.

Another periodic weather hindcast, this time covering a heavy precipitation event focused on York County.

June 28, 2021, is the hottest day at the reserve in a decade.

At a 4-day technician training in South Carolina, I gained a new appreciation for all the effort needed to collect consistent water quality and meteorological data across the country.

Jeremy Miller embraces the long view. His projects depend on it. As lead technician for our system-wide monitoring program (SWMP), as state coordinator for monitoring marine invasives (MIMIC), and as lead scientist on the reserve’s larval fish study, Jeremy adds pieces to puzzles without predefined shape. He knows that patterns begin to emerge only after years of methodical, meticulous data collection.

Jeremy Miller, research associate at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm, is no stranger to Wells Harbor. But recently he saw something he'd never seen before. Or at least, he thought he did.

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would share some numbers from our System Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) weather station here at the Reserve, and compare them to some values from around the area. First off, it seems we got "lucky" with rain fall totals. Both the Reserve station and the Portland International Jetport weather station reported just over an inch of rain on Tuesday. However rainfall totals varied a bit depending on where those "bands" of precipitation hit… pretty minor event as far as actual rainfall goes, but when that rain is being blown sideways at close to 60mph. Speaking of wind…

I just wanted to let you know that the Wells Reserve came through the storm in good shape, despite wind gusts (according to Jeremy Miller and the SWMP weather station) of up to 58 MPH Monday evening. We were without power beginning at around 8 pm, but regained it around 11 am today.

We lost about 20 shingles on the Laudholm barn and several on the Sheep Barn, but that is it. A dozen or more trees (most small, several large) had fallen across the trails, with one threatening the public entrance. John Speight and volunteer Frank Heller cleared the tree alongside the entrance road and many of those along the trails; they had the gates open by late morning. The Internet was on and the phones working (with some minor glitches) by noon.

We saw a cold and wet start to the month of June here in Southern Maine. I thought I would share some SWMP data from a few of our stations to illustrate how weather can significantly impact the water quality of our estuaries