Mainers spent Sunday shoveling out from a snowstorm that dropped between 4 and 6 inches on most areas even as a new weather threat was bearing down on the state.
The National Weather Service office in Gray said nearly all of Maine will be in the clutches of a “deep freeze” by Monday night that – combined with strong winds – will make it feel like 30 degrees below zero in some places. Temperatures in Portland will drop steadily throughout the day Monday and by 7 p.m. the wind chill factor will make it feel like 10 below.
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In northern Maine, near the Canadian border, the wind chill will make it feel like 30 below zero. Farmington, Augusta, Belfast and Bangor will experience a wind chill factor of 20 below. The National Weather Service warned that such extreme cold can cause frostbite or hypothermia.
“The deep freeze has arrived,” said Chris Kimble, a meteorologist with the weather service office in Gray. “I don’t see us rising above freezing (32 degrees) for at least a week.”
Sunday’s snowstorm dropped varying amounts of snow across Maine. The Portland International Jetport reported 4.4 inches, Standish got 6 inches, Brunswick had 4 inches, and Cape Elizabeth, 3.5 inches. Temple, a town in Franklin County, received 7.8 inches.
Sunday’s storm presented several challenges to drivers or anyone who ventured outside.
Icy conditions caused a tractor-trailer hauling bottled water to roll over on Range Road in Kittery at 7:03 a.m. No one was hurt, according to a dispatcher for the Kittery Police Department.
A York Police Department dispatcher said the town’s snow-clearing crews had a few problems at one point Sunday morning because of the freezing rain, but by midmorning the roads were clear.
Once the snow stopped, dense fog moved into the state early Sunday evening, Kimble said.
He warned that the fog – if temperatures drop below freezing – could react like freezing rain, coating objects with ice. Kimble said there would be a slight warm-up Sunday night into Monday morning before temperatures start to plummet into the single digits.
He predicted the coldest day of the week in Portland will be Thursday, with temperatures reaching a high of only 10 degrees.
Kimble said the last time it was this cold was early last January, when the thermometer dropped to below zero over a period of four days. The high temperature for that stretch – Jan. 1-4, 2014 – was 9 degrees on Jan. 3.
Staff Writer Beth Quimby contributed to this report.
Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
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