The heavy rain and snowmelt of the last few days probably will cause the Kennebec River to flood into low-lying areas of Skowhegan on Thursday, followed by Augusta and Hallowell on Friday, according to a Kennebec County official.
“We should plan on some minor flooding Friday,” Sean Goodwin, the county’s emergency management director, said in an email to a group of local officials on Thursday morning.
The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for Kennebec County, where the areas most at risk of flooding are mainly used as parking lots, Goodwin noted.
Goodwin also warned of minor flooding that’s expected Thursday night in Skowhegan, according to National Weather Service forecasts.
Downriver, water levels are projected to hit 10 feet, which is considered the “action stage” for flooding in Augusta, after 6 p.m. Thursday. In Augusta, flood stage is 12 feet. In Hallowell, it’s 12.8 feet.
It’s common for minor flooding to happen in the Augusta area every spring, as snow melts in northern Maine and flushes out to the ocean, swelling the river.
But the flooding can be severe, such as during the massive flood of 1987, and this past winter when unseasonably warm weather caused a downriver ice jam that swamped at least a dozen cars in Hallowell.
The “water from up north is always coming our way,” Goodwin said this week.
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