Monday was Groundhog Day in more ways than one.
On the day the weather-predicting rodents do their thing, Mainers were greeted with another gray, snowy day like the kind Bill Murray is forced to relive repeatedly in the movie of the same name.
The third plowable storm since the blizzard hit a week ago produced a familiar and, for many, tiresome set of events.
Schools were shut down, parking bans imposed and government offices closed. Cars slid off roads and into snowbanks. Temperatures hung in the single digits with wind gusts creating wind chill that made it feel like 10 to 20 below zero in southern Maine.
“We definitely have an active pattern,” John Cannon, of the National Weather Service in Gray, said of the recent storms and the possibility of more on the horizon.
“If we get a system Thursday into Friday and another Monday into Tuesday, we’re getting into the very unusual category at that point,” he said. “It’s going to be hard to find a place to put it.”
Southern Maine already has received more snow than it normally does in an average year – 61.9 inches from July 1 to June 30. So far this year, 62.8 inches had fallen at the Portland International Jetport as of 7:30 p.m. Monday, according to the weather service.
The average amount of snowfall through Feb. 1 is 34.8 inches. Portland has received over 2 feet more than that already.
Temperatures, on the other hand, are predicted to be well below normal, from a low of zero at night to a high of 17 during the day Tuesday. That compares to normal temperatures at this time of year ranging from 14 to 32 degrees.
The weather service issued a wind chill advisory Monday night that will remain in effect through 9 a.m. Tuesday, saying that the low temperatures combined with gusty winds will make it feel like it is 30 below zero in some places, a situation that forecasters described as “dangerously cold.”
And Old Man Winter just keeps on pounding away.
The jetport got 9 inches of snow Monday, Standish got 10.1 inches, Lewiston 10, Phippsburg 10, Kennebunk 8.4 and Rockland 13, according to the weather service.
Whit Palmer, who is originally from Florida, said he enjoyed the snow – at first. “The novelty is wearing off,” he said Monday as he rubbed some warmth back into his cheeks.
Sadie Grant, 17, and Tyana Moore, 16, students at Casco Bay High School who grabbed a bite to eat at the Portland Public Market House because there was no school, had differing views on the unrelenting snow.
Grant, who enjoys skiing, likes the powder. There is a downside, however.
“Sometimes my parents make me shovel with them. It’s horrible,” Grant said.
Moore is just sick of winter.
“I don’t like it at all. It’s too cold,” she said. “I don’t like any of this winter.”
For some, however, the snow can keep on coming.
“Skiers are just having a field day they’re so happy,” said Joel Hinshaw, a cross-country skiing and biathlon coach in Yarmouth.
“It’s so dry and powdery, it’s easy to work with,” he said. “We call it ‘hero snow,’ when you ski on it, it makes you feel like a hero because it’s so easy.”
For those not inclined to outdoor recreation, a succession of snowstorms can be a bummer. But Kelly Rohan, director of clinical training at the University of Vermont’s Psychology Department, said the effects of weather on mood are often overstated.
“It may surprise people to hear that research studies show the effects of day-to-day weather on mood are present, but quite small,” said Rohan, an expert on Seasonal Affective Disorder.
A weekend without snowfall meant Portland Public Services was finally able to make significant headway cleaning snow from residential streets, though much snow remains.
“We’re calling a citywide parking ban (for Monday night) because there’s just too much snow and the streets are still narrow,” said city spokeswoman Jessica Grondin. “It’s really hard for them to get down streets with any cars on the road.”
The city had used 60 percent of its $1.1 million snow removal and plowing budget through Friday. And the tall snowbanks were having another impact: Parking meter revenue was off 45 percent, with the city taking in just $22,800 last week compared with the $42,000 it typically collects.
There were numerous accidents related to the weather, including a collision between a tractor trailer and a Maine Department of Transportation plow truck on Interstate 95 in Etna. The tractor-trailer driver tried to overtake the plow but instead ran into it, causing the plow to go off the road and roll on its side. Neither driver was injured. The vehicles were left on the roadside and will be removed Tuesday.
On Monday night, Maine State Police reported that a propane delivery truck slid off the southbound lane of Interstate 295 in Yarmouth before landing in the median strip. It had to be pulled out by a tow truck. No one was injured.
Drivers on I-295 between Freeport and Portland encountered powerful winds that blew snow across the road. In some stretches, whiteout conditions made it nearly impossible to see more than 20 or 30 feet in front of the vehicle.
It’s too early to know how much snow will fall Thursday night into Friday in southern Maine, or at the beginning of next week – although one model suggests next week’s storm could be long and heavy.
“There’s a lot of disagreement with the models on those,” said Cannon, the weather service forecaster.
It’s not just the computer models.
Groundhog Day, roughly in the middle of the season between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, stems from a Pennsylvania legend that if a groundhog emerging from its burrow sees its shadow, it means six more weeks of winter. Punxsutawney Phil may be the most well-known of the forecasting rodents, but he’s not the only one. There are some 30 of the critters out there, and there’s little agreement. Fifteen of them saw no shadow and forecast a shorter winter. Sixteen of them – including Punxsutawney Phil – saw a shadow that indicated a lengthy winter, according to the Groundhog Day entry on the Wikipedia website.
Jimmy the Groundhog of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, is listed as a disputed forecast because the weather was clear and shadows formed, but the local mayor insists the groundhog told him it would be an abbreviated winter, right before Jimmy bit his ear.
Staff Writer Dennis Hoey contributed to this report.
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