‘A traveler’s nightmare:’ Region prepares for weekend storm

Friday felt a lot like spring.

Saturday will not.

Although there is still some uncertainty about the coming snow storm, weather officials are pretty clear about a couple things: There will be a lot of snow and it will come fast once it gets started.

There is potential, weather forecasters say, for between 12 and 18 inches of snow. In some areas, it will be wet and heavy. Winds, meanwhile, could gust up to 40 mph in some areas, between 20 and 30 in others. The bottom line, meteorologist tend to agree, is that Saturday morning will not be a good time to be on the roads.

“Travel is not advised,” according to a National Weather Service advisory on Friday, “especially late tonight through Saturday morning due to snowfall rates up to 2-inches per hour at times. Please delay your planned travel and provide road crews the space they need to perform their jobs safely.”

Mike Haggett, of Pine Tree Weather, deemed the coming storm “a traveler’s nightmare,” that will persist into Saturday afternoon.

“As road crews try to gain control,” he wrote in his Friday afternoon forecast, “another burst of heavy snow passes through the region around midday.”

By this phase of winter, most people already know the drill. Parking bans have been put into place just about everywhere. Some events were canceled or postponed, including all 10 state championship basketball games scheduled for the weekend. Power company crews were on standby in the event of outages — which seems likely considering the particular wallop this storm means to pack.

“Heavy snow and wind is not a good combination for potential power outages,” Haggett wrote.

The storm is coming with a whole bag of tricks and a messy weekend is expected because of it.

“Thank goodness for Lewiston Public Works,” offered Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline.

The heaviest snowfall is expected between midnight and noon on Saturday, according to the NWS. What kind of snow you get depends largely on where you happen to be. Will it be the so-called “heart attack” snow, all sloppy wet and heavy? Or the light stuff that blows around and blinds you?

Along the coast, it will likely be a heavy wet snow, according to the NWS, the kind that brings down power lines all over the place.

“Further inland,” according to the NWS post, “the snow is expected to be a lighter content with blowing snow and limited visibility being a bigger threat than power outages.”

The ski areas were predictably enthused by the coming snow.

“You’ll likely awaken to multiple inches of snow on the ground — best feeling ever — with more accumulating through the day, according to the Sugarloaf ski area mountain report. “Many trails will be smoothed out for the freshies to fall on top.”

Those with weekend plans, and those just tired of the frequency of snow storms lately, are not quite as thrilled.

“Not impressed,” sputtered a Sabattus woman, on Facebook.

“It’s getting old,” offered a woman in Auburn.

“Work, home, shovel,” is how Sean Gay of Lewiston describes it. “Shovel, work, home, shovel. Glad this is on a weekend. I’m an electrician and have to leave early and get home late so can’t always get to snow before it freezes. Maine living, I guess.”

Bonny Gonya of Dixfield is ready for winter to be over, as well.

“I’ve had enough,” she said. “Come on, springtime.”

Nope. While it would be nice to think of the weekend blizzard as winter’s last hurrah, that might be overly optimistic, according to the weather experts. While only light precipitation is expected over the coming week, another significant storm may be in the works for next weekend.

“Winter,” said Haggett, “is not over.”