Snow is falling across much of southern Maine this afternoon. Already up to 8 inches have accumulated, especially west of the Maine Turnpike where speed limits have been lowered.  Snow will continue up to and just beyond sunset.  The heaviest of the snow will tend to wind down after 4 PM.  There have been some areas that got over 2 inches of snow in an hour.  There can be a few snow showers the first part of tonight, but nearly all of the accumulating snow will be over by then. 

I’ll be updating the forecast all day on Twitter at @growingwisdom please send me your reports there.

 

The snow is heavy and wet and even mixed with rain along parts of the coast.  The trend the next several hours will be for colder air to work into the storm and the snow will get a bit less heavy   I am expecting the jackpot of snow to be from around Rochester in New Hampshire up to Paris in Maine and then south east to just north of the mid coast. There will be less snow along the coastline, north of Augusta and west of the Maine/New Hampshire border.  Even in these areas there can be  a few hours of heavier snow and therefore higher totals.  Since the snow is not light and fluffy, I recommend trying to shovel more frequently and not wait until this over. It will be quite hard to remove over a foot of this type of snow. 
 
You might notice the snow is sticking better to the existing snow, than it is to the roads.  This time of the year, even when it is cloudy, there is some solar heating getting through the overcast.   This can warm the roads enough so that the snow has a harder time sticking than it would have just 6 weeks ago in the same situation.  
 
Monday and Tuesday look like great with sunshine and temperatures around 40F at the coast and just around freezing across ski country.  For skiers, the first two days of the week will have the driest weather.  The rest of the week turns unsettled with periods of rain and snow along the coast and snow in the mountains.  I am not seeing on big storm this week, but by the end of the week some of the hilly terrain may have picked up several inches of new snow. 
 
This is the last week of February and the sting of arctic air is less likely from this point forward. That said, the long range pattern continues to look more like winter than spring.  While meteorological winter comes to an end this week, March is often a snowy and cold month.  This week I started some seeds of onions and other cold weather crops.  I am ready to start gardening and I will certainly be looking long and hard for signs of spring on my charts. 

Gardening this week With another storm on the horizon for the weekend you might feel like spring is still very far away. The reality is that in just a few weeks, many of you will be able to get into your gardens and start growing for another year. Earlier this month I went to New England Grows which is a trade show for those who work in the industry. Although not open to the general public, in this week’s video I share some of the latest trends and newest plants for 2013. I’ll be updating the forecast all day on Twitter at @growingwisdom please send me your reports there.


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