The Wrack

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

So looks as if we got a bit "lucky" and missed the brunt of Hurricane Irene as the storm passed to our west dropping large amounts of rain on western New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts and Vermont. Here are some totals from our System Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) weather station behind the Coastal Ecology Center.

Flooding in York County — is it becoming more common? Roads impassable, bridges washed out, basements full... the stories have become all too familiar in recent years.

The Mother's Day storm in May 2006 seemed an anomaly till the Patriots' Day storm hit in 2007. This March, the Wells Reserve measured 16 inches of rainfall, 5 inches more than Portland's record-setting 11. The roads closed and the sump pumps hummed again.

With the impressive amounts of rain in the last month or so, and some unusually warm temperatures in March and early April, I thought I would share some of the more interesting weather trends we recorded through our System Wide Monitoring Program here at the reserve. March was the wettest and warmest on record for the state of Maine!

Hello again, Well another strong storm system battered the Maine coast again this past weekend. Here is a brief synopsis of that storm data courtesy of the System Wide Monitoring Program. All data from 3/13 at 11pm to 3/15 at 3pm was collected on the SWMP Meteorological Station located behind the Coastal Ecology Center. We had 6.7 inches of rain fall between late Saturday night (13th) into mid…

Whew! Nothing like some February rain showers huh? It's been a "weird" winter for lack of a more "technical" term.....

Here are some numbers from the most recent "Blast" that occured Thursday Feb 25 through early morning of February 26th 2010. (All data was collected on the SWMP Meteorological Station behind the Maine Coastal Ecology Center.)

York County's worst ice storm in decades knocked out power for 4 days at the Wells Reserve. No significant damage occurred to the Laudholm buildings. Surely some branches and trees fell, but trails are all open and the new fallen snow has already inspired at least one cross-country skier. Photo by Nanc…