Thousands across Maine spent much of Sunday digging their way out from under more than a foot of snow after the first major storm of the new decade blew its way through the state with average winds of 35 to 40 miles per hour.

“It’s been long days and long nights,” said snowplow driver Jim Cormier. “It was different everywhere. Some driveways had three- to four-foot snow drifts. And then other places — like big parking lots — had snow blown off the sides.”

Cormier put in about 12 hours Sunday clearing driveways and parking lots in Auburn, Lewiston and Lisbon. He said when the morning snow turned to afternoon rain it made clearing more difficult due to the snow becoming very wet and heavy.

The white stuff getting weighted down by rain didn’t just present problems for snowplow drivers like Cormier. Avid snowmobilers were also cautious about hitting the trails this weekend. 

“It ain’t the greatest driving weather,” Fred Taylor, vice president of the Andy Valley Sno Gypsies, a local snowmobile club, said Sunday evening. “It’s pretty wet today.”

Taylor said that ideal snowmobile conditions are new snow, but powdery snow, not like the snow Mother Nature dumped this weekend.

And dump she did.

According to Bob Marine, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, cities in southern and central Maine saw anywhere from 4.4 inches in York County’s Hollis to upward of 19 inches in Kennebec County’s Randolph since the storm started overnight Thursday. Locally, Lewiston residents dug out from under 14 inches of snow Sunday morning, while Auburn awoke to 15 inches.

Totals in other areas varied widely. For example, Oxford accumulated 14 inches, according to Marine, but Bethel — less than 50 miles away — topped out at 2.5 inches accumulation over the last four days. Coos County in New Hampshire saw that state’s highest snow accumulation, with 18.7 inches recorded in Jefferson.

“Everyone knew it was going to be a long-duration storm and that it was going to dump a lot of snow,” Marine said.

Marine said not to expect much sunshine until Wednesday. He said that temperatures will be in the low to mid-30s for the next couple days with a chance of more snow on Tuesday.