LEWISTON — Light, persistent snow fell throughout the day Friday in only the second snowstorm of February.
Beginning near 6 a.m. in Lewiston, the storm picked up later in the morning and continued until 5 p.m. Friday, leaving behind nearly half a foot of powdery snow.
It would have been a standard, unremarkable Maine snowstorm had temperatures not been an unseasonably warm 60 degrees just two days previously on Wednesday.
Road conditions were poor all throughout the day.
Near 9 a.m. Friday, a pickup truck slid off of Runaround Pond Road in Durham, striking a tree before hitting Paula Parson’s home and rupturing the baseboard heat pipe.
A pickup truck crashed into Paula Parson’s home in Durham Friday morning, damaging the baseboard heat pipe and the framing of the house.
Parsons was sitting at the table when she heard the truck hit the tree. After rushing to the window to see what the noise was, she quickly backed away, shouting as the truck crashed into her home.
It’s not the first time a vehicle has ended up in her yard, she said. Her home is on the corner of two roads, and she’s had several drive onto her lawn over the years.
This was the first vehicle to end up in her home, she said. No one was injured in the accident.
A local plumber came by several hours after the accident to restore heat to their home.
Parsons said she was thankful for the emergency personnel who arrived quickly and for the community support she received on Facebook.
Mary McLellan, owner of Bliss Farm Inn in Durham, even offered to let Parsons and her husband stay in one of their rooms for free until the heating was fixed.
“People were amazing, absolutely amazing,” she said.
The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning spanning from Friday morning until 1 a.m. Saturday, which predicted heavy snow in southern, western, southwestern and central Maine.
Chris Legro, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Gray, said coastal southern Maine was expected to receive the highest snowfall totals, with central Maine seeing its peak in the early to late afternoon.
At 1:30 p.m. Friday, Cape Neddick in York County had received just over 11 inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service.
By 5 p.m., the storm began winding down in Lewiston-Auburn.
A man walks through Kennedy Park in Lewiston during the snowstorm Friday morning. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
The snow promises to revive snowmobile trails in Androscoggin County, which lost much of their snow pack due to warm temperatures and rain over the last couple of weeks.
However, local trailmasters urge caution as ice and debris may make for potentially hazardous conditions in some spots.
State and local government offices were closed Friday in advance of the storm; still, Lewiston and Auburn’s city halls remained open.
As of 6 p.m. Friday, there were no reported power outages in the state, according to the Central Maine Power website.
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