Lewiston-Auburn greets nor’easter with cancellations

Expect this season’s first nor’easter to continue into Tuesday, piling up perhaps as much as 18 inches in the mountains.

The National Weather Service office in Gray expects up to half a foot of snow to be on the ground in the Lewiston-Auburn area by Tuesday morning with periods of freezing drizzle possible.

“Further north toward Lewiston and Augusta, we are looking at 5 to 6 inches of snow by daybreak ( Tuesday), NWS forecaster Derek Schroeter said. “We do feel like there will be periods of a freezing drizzle with sleet mixing in during the day, but all said and done we are looking at a solid 8 to 12 inches south of the mountains and up in the mountains we can see 12 to 18 inches.”

The heaviest of snow should end Tuesday morning, but precipitation is expected to linger through the day. Wind gusts may reach 30 to 40 miles per hour. The NWS is expecting wind gusts and sticky snow could lead to power outages south of the mountains.

By midday, the storm will begin to produce a mix of sleet, freezing drizzle and occasional bursts of heavy snow across the state, according to the National Weather Service. When that mix ends, the storm will revert to snow and continue to accumulate. An additional 3 to 6 inches of snow could fall Tuesday night until the storm finally ends around daybreak Wednesday.

The Farmers Almanac predicted a storm coming from the Mid-Atlantic coast this week.

“We’re going to react to it as it comes,” Lewiston Public Works Directory Mary Ann Brenchick said. “It looks like we are going to have a mix of snow and ice, then back to snow again.”

Despite the lack of storms, the city of Lewiston isn’t saving on plowing so far this winter.

“We haven’t saved money because ice events,” Brenchick said. “The staff is still there and there is a little of overtime that we didn’t do. I don’t know what it is but storms do not happen from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Most of all of them are on overtime anyway. We have had eight or nine plowing events so far. There aren’t a lot of savings because the staff is going out anyway.”

Lewiston’s parking ban began Monday night that lasts until 7 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Auburn announced on its Facebook page a parking ban from 10 p.m. Monday night to 10 p.m. Tuesday. The business district is exempt from the 24-hour parking ban from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Lewiston’s solid waste facility will be closed Tuesday to the public because Public Works needs those drivers to help during this major storm.

Lewiston residential trash collection will still be done.

The Lewiston School District announced Tuesday classes are canceled for the snow day. Superintendent Jake Langlais challenged students to make a snowman, snowball, help a neighbor clean up from the storm, watch a movie and turn off technology for one hour.

St. Dominic Academy also announced Tuesday is a snow day.

The Auburn School District posted on its Facebook page that Tuesday will be a remote learning day and all schools will be closed for classes.

Brenchick said the Lewiston Recreation Department will also be closed Tuesday and it’s looking to do snowman building contest at Kennedy Park on Wednesday.