Over the weekend much of the area missed a big storm. While York County got hit hard, as did Down East Maine, the rest of the state skated by without much snow. Again today this is the case, as a storm passes safely out to sea to our south.

However, this isn’t the end of this particular storm. The system will pull to the east this evening and take most of the snow with it. When I look at the computer models for the overnight hours and into Wednesday, they keep trying to hold back a small piece of the storm along the coastline. This hints at the chance of snow lingering or even becoming steady over places like York County and eventually the Portland area.

Micro-Forecasting
These small scale events are virtually impossible to forecast correctly. I could take a position on what is going to happen either way and I might be right or wrong. However, it’s such a small area affected I just want to make you aware of its possibility. I’ve seen these set-ups produce no snow in Portland and 18 inches of snow around Wells. I’ve also seen forecasts of 6-12 inches of snow and not a flake falls.

From your standpoint it’s frustrating to read there might be accumulating snow or there might not be. However, my confidence in this snow event occurring is too low to make a definitive call. It’s like trying to pinpoint whether a thunderstorm will pop-up in the summer and then pinpointing if it hits Gorham or Buxton.

The image below shows a projected radar for tomorrow. The little blobs of blue are snowfall. These areas are what I’ll be watching for. The majority of you won’t even know it’s happening unless it’s over you.

Tomorrow, if there is snow along the coast, it may expand and move north into Portland and surrounding communities. Inland areas will see some sun and although highs will remain under 32F, where the sun does make an appearance, there will be some melting on the pavement.

The next two images (credit:WeatherBell Analytics) show one model’s radar projection for Thursday morning along with the snow projection of this model. Notice the small area of heavy snow? That might not even happen, but this model is hinting it will. I’ll be updating here and on Twitter tomorrow as we get more data.

Friday is a very cold day once again, similar to yesterday, but not as much wind. The next storm threat comes after a dry and partly sunny Saturday. There is a chance for snow Sunday, but there’s also a chance we don’t get a storm. Unlike the past three weeks when I would tell you to move travel plans for Monday, I don’t feel that way right now. It’s not so clear to me that anything major will happen this weekend. Some models bring a moderate amount of snow, others nothing, so it’s just worth noting Saturday night and Sunday is the next chance of significant snow.

Cold Continues
Today will mark the 15th day where the high temperature in Portland (and most other areas) has failed to reach 32F. If you look at the records for February you will find several years with 21 days of sub-freezing highs. So if we see just seven more of these below freezing days in the next 10, we break all those records.

How Long To Melt?
By some measurements we are in uncharted territory for the amount of snow on the ground. However, by looking back at some past data we can get an idea of when the snow will be gone, at least from the level.

We have a few things in our favor. The biggest is the sun is getting stronger each day. This time of the year the sun is similar to mid-October, while not July, the amount and strength of solar radiation increases each day.

Snow sublimates and dry fluffy snow does this even faster. Sublimation is when something goes from a solid directly to a gas. It’s not evaporation. It’s why the ice cubes in your freezer shrink after a few months. So the snow will sublimate and settle.

Let’s assume it remains cold through March with 18 inches of snow on the ground the last day. That’s not a bad assumption, right? If you look at April 1956, which followed a very snowy March, Portland had 17 inches on the ground on the 1st of that April. It then took two weeks to get rid of most of the snow.

That year, April was cold and there was a wet 7 inches of snow on the 8th. It’s very difficult to keep snow on the ground through April and while it can certainly snow in April and May, the sun on April 1st is similar to strength of the sun in the second week of September. By the end of the month the sun is like mid-August.

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