Central and southern Maine was “spared” serious snow depths Saturday compared to parts of eastern and northern Maine, which saw over a foot of snow. However, driving conditions, as promised by weather forecasters, were treacherous with many vehicle slide-offs reported throughout the state.

The National Weather Service touted the storm as bringing this season’s greatest snowfall and issued a winter storm warning Friday for most of Maine which will run until 6 a.m. Sunday.

According to WGME Meteorologist Christian Bridges on Friday, a corridor running from Fryeburg through Lewiston, Augusta, Bangor and into northern Washington County would bring 5 to 9 inches of snow. Some 8 to 14 inches were expected north of that corridor with isolated spots getting up to 2 feet of snow.

By Saturday evening, the forecast was playing out as predicted.

The geographical center of Maine and the far reaches of northern Maine received a whopping 14 inches of snowfall by around 3:45 p.m.

Near the Maine-New Hampshire border in Oxford County, Lovell had 9.5 inches by around 3:45 p.m. and between 7 and 8.5 inches fell in the easterly stretch toward Lewiston. Southern Maine received the 1 to 6 inches of snow forecasters promised.

NWS predicted snow and sleet accumulation of 4 to 8 inches for Lewiston and Auburn for Saturday afternoon and another 3 to 5 inches into the night. Snow turned to a light wintry mix around 4:30 p.m.

Lewiston Public Works Highway Operations Manager Reggie Poussard said around 5 p.m. that snow cleanup was going as planned. Sanders started treating roads around 4 a.m. Saturday and plows followed around 7 a.m. to scrape roads.

“We sent a few sander operators home early today to rest so we can beef up the early morning crew needed for the final cleanup tomorrow morning,” Poussard said. “Sidewalk plows are punching out the primary sidewalks now and will hit them all again tomorrow morning when it stops snowing.”

NWS forecasts called for a 70% to 100% chance of a wintry mix Saturday evening into Sunday early morning for most of Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. Sunday morning into the afternoon is expected to have a high temperature of 37 degrees with northerly wind gusts of up to 25 mph. Sunday evening is expected to see lows of 12 degrees and minimum windchill.

As of 4:45 p.m. Saturday, only one Central Maine Power customer in Farmington and one in Waterford were without power.

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