Heavy wet snow, rain falls on western Maine as promised

Jim Gauthier shovels the end of a driveway Wednesday in Lewiston. He, who works for a landlord and generally snowblows the driveways, recalled much heavier snowfalls in his youth. “I remember one storm where me and my brother had to jump out of a second-floor window with shovels so we could get our front door open,” he said. Gauthier also swears that the kids on his school bus used to have to get out and push the bus out of snowbanks, “almost on a daily basis.” Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

The Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning storm that promised significant snow followed by heavy rain did not stray far from predictions judging by snowfall amounts, according to National Weather Service forecasters.

NWS forecaster Derek Schroeter said winds also played out as expected for most areas. The only overperformance was in storm surge and coastal flooding impacts and the only flood warning still in effect around 5 p.m. Wednesday was for the Presumpscot River in West Falmouth, he said. The Cumberland County river was at its cresting point around that time.

Schroeter said flooding was most impactful in the foothills along the coastal plain.

“We had about 8 to 14 inches of snow on the ground that melted out with the rain … Once you got up into the foothills and into the mountains … most of that moisture was deposited as snow,” Schroeter said. “But the new snow that fell before the changeover to rain was able to absorb that rainfall, so there wasn’t much in the way of anomalous runoff in the headwaters of the major stem rivers.”

Franklin and Oxford counties appear to have been hit the hardest, according to NWS snowfall reports from early Wednesday morning. All reporting areas in Franklin County had snow depths between 9 inches in New Sharon and 14.7 inches in New Vineyard. Farmington reported 11 inches; Madrid, 14.6 inches; Carrabassett Valley, 14 inches; and Dallas and Kingfield each had 12 inches. Temple and Rangeley reported 11.8 and 11 inches, respectively.

In Oxford County, Andover reported 13.5 inches, Newry and Bethel both had 11.5 inches and Rumford, Hartford, Lovell, Bryant Pond and Stoneham had 10 to 10.5 inches. Only the Somerset County towns of Solon and New Portland reported more than 10 inches of snow, with 11 and 10.4 inches respectively.

Seelye Lefebrve, 4, tries to navigate his toy car through the snow Wednesday under the watchful eye of his mother, Macey, near their home in Lewiston. Macey works at Oxford Hills High School, which had a snow day, so the two were out enjoying the mild temperature. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Androscoggin County saw between 3 inches in Lisbon to 7.5 inches in Livermore Falls. Lewiston had just over and Auburn just under 5 inches of snow.

Potential record amounts fell through the night on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Schroeter said the record for Jan. 10 was just over 18 inches, and summit saw just over 20 inches. NWS weather data from a southeast point on the mountain read 25 inches.

Lewiston public works highway division manager Reggie Poussard said his crews were doing storm cleanup since before the snow began falling around 8 p.m. Wednesday. Since the storm wasn’t a typical one, Poussard said crews had to make some adjustments, but overall did well keeping the streets and sidewalks clear.

Crews started by sanding the roads before snow began to stick, making it easier for plows to later clear it from the pavement.

“Obviously, the snow is coming in so fast and so hard that we had the plows move in directly behind (sanding trucks),” Poussard said. “We still had trucks out there this morning at 7 a.m. wrapping up routes.”

Lenny Childress shovels wet and heavy “slop” Wednesday afternoon in his driveway following snow and rain in the early morning hours. “I don’t like Florida, but Florida is starting to look pretty good right about now,” the Lewiston resident said. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Poussard said when the rain started hitting hard, crews had to be split up, some in pickup trucks with plows, to open drains clogged with snow, a good example why the city instituted a parking ban.

“We had probably 5 inches of snow out there that we were moving, so of course that makes a pretty large snow ridge,” Poussard said. “Our goal was to be able to plow as close to that curb line as possible, so we can open up all of our drains (and) reduce the amount of flooding.”

Snow ridges left around cars parked on the streets freeze and make it difficult for crews to move which, in turn, makes future parking difficult. Keeping cars out of the way makes it easier for crews and for the public after weather events, Poussard said.

Considering the seriousness of the storm and utility companies’ preparedness, nearly 4,100 Central Maine Power customers remained offline as of 6 p.m. Wednesday from some 31,000 who were affected in the early morning hours. None in Androscoggin or Franklin County were without power and only one Oxford County customer on Hebron Road in Paris was still without power as of 6 p.m.