After Christmas Day whiteout, Mainers come out to play and plow

December 26, 2017 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events

The biggest Christmas snowstorm in 15 years slammed into Maine Monday morning, bringing whiteout conditions and up to a foot of snow to much of the state.

The National Weather Service in Gray called off a blizzard alert for southern and western Maine around 1 p.m. Monday as the winter storm pushed into the eastern half of the state. A blizzard warning remained in effect for midcoast Maine and the weather service warned that blowing and drifting snow could impair driving in other parts of Maine.

During the height of the storm, the weather service reported snow falling at 2 to 4 inches per hour in some places, making travel “very dangerous to impossible.” Speed limits on the Maine Turnpike were reduced to 45 mph morning, and the turnpike authority reported one slide-off between Saco and Scarborough around 8 a.m.

Jonathan Graffius of Portland and his daughter Lucy, 7, had the sledding hill at Payson Park all to themselves on Christmas afternoon. John Ewing/Staff Photographer

Maine State Police received about 50 reports of cars off the road at various times Monday, according to a dispatcher at the police barracks in Gray. Poor visibility appeared to be the primary cause of many of the crashes, he added.

The weather service cautioned that winds as high as 50 mph, coupled with tree branches already weighted down with ice from Saturday’s storm, were likely to cause power outages and that turned out to be the case, with more than 2,000 Central Maine Power customers without electricity as of 12:30 p.m.

Bowdoinham, in Sagadahoc County, was the hardest hit. Almost 1,000 customers there – more than half the customers in the town – lost power. In Falmouth, almost 870 customers reported outages, but power to most of them was restored by 1:30 p.m., according to the company.

Portland native Mack Fisher got in some ski jumping at Payson Park while home for the holiday from Venice Beach, California, Monday. Staff photo by John Ewing

Although no flights from the Portland Jetport were canceled, some departures were delayed by up to 2 hours.

Some towns announced parking bans in advance of the storm. Falmouth prohibited street parking until 10 p.m. Monday and Scarborough placed a ban until 11:30 p.m. There was no parking ban in Portland, but in an alert the city asked people to park off-street and use city parking ban lots, since garages were not open. Portland expects a parking ban on Tuesday for cleanup, according to the alert.

A Portland city plow clears snow from Stevens Avenue Monday. Staff photo by John Ewing

The storm was expected to bring about 10 inches of snow across most of southern Maine, Pohl said. That would make it the biggest Christmas day storm since 2002, when Portland got 12.5 inches of snow and Gray got 14 inches.

“We probably won’t break that, but it will be interesting,” Pohl said.

Some parts of southern Maine had already received more than 10 inches of snow by noon. Weather observers reported unofficial accumulations of 13 inches in New Gloucester and 10.5 inches in Gray, according to the weather service.