Mike Landry, owner of Arctic Snowplowing in Portland, is ready for snow but will have to keep waiting. Portland is set to experience the second least snowy December on record. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

At the top of Maine near the Canadian border, Mike Ouellette is lamenting the lack of cold, snowy weather.

“Today we have sun, 40 degrees,” Ouellette said from his Ouellette Trading Post store in Van Buren last weekend. “We did have an inch of snow, but we’re losing it real, real quick.”

He knew any snow left on the ground was about to be washed away by the historic rain and warm temperatures this week. “I’m almost sure we’re not going to have a white Christmas.”

He can count on it.

Maine still gets some snowy Decembers and white Christmases, but they are becoming less common and less predictable, data show. And that’s bad news for Ouellette’s business, where snowmobilers stop for meals and supplies.

“People are calling from all over to find out if we have enough snow to go riding,” Ouellette said. “I have to tell them no.”

Ten years ago at this time of year, “we had snow.” In the last few years, he said, “We get a little bit of snow, then we get rain or get hot weather and it just melts off.”

Historically, most of Maine has had a 50% or greater chance of having a white Christmas, with the northern and western parts of the state getting close to 100%, said Andy Pershing, the vice president for science at Climate Central, a nonprofit climate education organization. This year, the snow coverage is very low, basically only in the mountains, because of a lack of snowstorms, warm conditions and rain.

NOTHING ON THE HORIZON

The forecast is for Maine to be warm this weekend, with above-freezing temperatures even in the mountains on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – in part due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions, Pershing said. Climate change has boosted the odds of those warm temperatures by at least 1.5 times across much of the state, and two times as likely in the western region.

“While cold, snowy conditions will still occur in Maine for the foreseeable future, these conditions will be less and less reliable,” said Pershing, who was the chief science officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland before joining Climate Central.

Winter is the fastest warming season in the United States, and New England tops the charts with upwards of a 5-degree increase since 1970, according to Elizabeth Burakowski, an assistant research professor at the Institute for the Earth Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. For southern and coastal areas in the region, this means increased odds that winter precipitation will fall as rain instead of snow, including during the Christmas holiday.

“If we don’t act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the odds of a white Christmas will decline in Maine, historically one of most likely places to have more than 1 inch of snow on the ground,” Burakowski said. “The key to keeping our winters white is a rapid and just transition to clean, efficient and low-carbon energy production.”

Burakowski was the lead author of a 2022 paper about future winter warming in the Northeast published in the journal Northeastern Naturalist. The study concluded that a reduction in emissions could preserve 16 days of snow cover and below-freezing temperatures.

Rising winter temperatures spell trouble for Maine’s balsam-fir Christmas tree and wreath industry, as well as the state’s snowmobile, ski and ice fishing industries. And a drop in freezing nights means that invasive species previously killed off by Maine’s cold winters will have a better chance of surviving.

PORTLAND FAR BELOW AVERAGE

Even if it got colder, “there really isn’t much of a signal for another weather system that could bring snow by Christmas,” said Derek Schroeter in the National Weather Service’s Gray office.

Portland averages 14.6 inches of snow in December. So far, the city has received only 0.5 inches. “If Portland was to not receive any more snow for the rest of the month, that would make it the second-least snowiest December on record,” he said. The least snowiest December was in 1999, when there was only a trace of snow.

A winter enthusiast, Schroeter said growing up in Saco and skiing in Maine “is what got me involved in meteorology. I was always watching for the next snowstorm at a young age.” He still looks, and hopes, for the next snow. “So it is painful to see this rain.”

Mike Landry agrees.

Landry owns Arctic Snowplowing in Portland and has plowed for 25 years. But keeping a snowplowing business has become more difficult, he said.

“You spend all this money to maintain your equipment, and if it doesn’t snow, things are just sitting there and no money’s coming in. The last couple of years we’ve gotten less and less snow.”

Usually, this time of year he’s plowed several times and salted frequently for freezing rain. So far, “I’ve salted only twice.”

Dylan Knight of Knight Property Services is just fine with no snow this month.

His company provides snow removal, too, but it also does year-round land maintenance for commercial and condo associations. His customers pay set, year-round contracts, which means “we’re paid if it snows or it doesn’t snow,” Knight said. No snow removal in December means his workers can catch up on clearing leaves and have time to enjoy the holidays, Knight said.

Cross-country ski trails in many spots, including at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester and at Carter’s XC Ski Center in Bethel, have been closed for a lack of snow.

Carter’s did open on Dec. 7 after an early snowstorm, said owner Jessica Carter. But by Dec. 17, there wasn’t enough coverage to keep trails open for skiing, the snow having fallen victim to rain and warm temperatures.

“Now we are waiting on more snow again,” she said. In recent years snow has been more sporadic with less accumulation.

She has faith that the snow will come, and her ski center’s fat bike trails have been open for riding in the meantime, she said.

Wildlife is taking note of the changing weather, too.

Participants in last weekend’s annual bird count by Maine Audubon counted 64 Carolina wrens. “A couple of decades ago we would have seen zero,” Maine Audubon staff naturalist Doug Hitchcox said. They also saw 267 white-throated sparrows, which used to be an unusual sight in Maine winters; 15 great blue herons, which should be farther south by December; and a flock of 300 red-winged blackbirds, which usually only appear in spring, Hitchcox said.

“In just the last decade we’re seeing them lingering later in the winter and earlier in the spring.”

Bird counters enjoyed the mild weather and seeing so many birds, “but this is an indicator of the climate change crisis,” Hitchcox said. “It is scary.”