PORTLAND (AP) – Forecasters are predicting more snow for Friday night and Saturday on the heels of a storm that dumped as much as three feet of snow on parts of far northern Maine.

A storm Tuesday and Wednesday deposited 29 inches of snow on Fort Kent, 25 inches on Madawaska and 24 inches on St. Francis in Aroostook County, according to the National Weather Service.

The same storm dumped 12 inches of snow on Auburn and Bridgton and more than a foot on some western Maine towns.

Mark Bloomer, a meteorologist in Caribou, said several more inches of snow are expected in northern Maine on Saturday, depending on the track of the storm. Caribou has now received 113 inches of snow this winter, which is 21 inches above normal for this date.

The next storm should also bring several more inches of snow to southern Maine, said Art Lester of the weather service’s office in Gray.

“It’s another one of those systems like we’ve been having this month,” Lester said.

Portland has received 89.6 inches so far this winter, putting it on pace to possibly exceed 100 inches for the season – which has happened only 13 times since records started being kept in 1882.

The last time it happened was the winter of 1995-96, when 123 inches fell in Portland.

In the storm earlier this week, Madawaska got up to 36 inches of snow in localized areas with winds that created drifts that closed down roads and reduced visibility to near zero, said Yves Lizotte, the town’s public works supervisor.

It took crews more than four hours to clear Main Street, Lizotte said.

“During that time, we must have hauled 125 truckloads of snow away,” he said.

The heavy rains that preceded the snows created problems in Presque Isle by sending slush into Main Street catch basins, plugging up the drainage system and causing flooding on the city’s thoroughfare, said Public Works Director Gerry James.

In some spots, the water was more than a foot deep.


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