Winter officially arrived in Maine on Sunday with a powerful punch, delivering blinding snows and strong winds that made travel treacherous and disrupted holiday preparations.
All of Maine north of Bangor was under a blizzard warning until today, and weather forecasters said blowing snow would continue to impair visibility after the white stuff stopped falling.
“With the fluffiness of the snow, [winds] will pick up the snow and create whiteout conditions,” Joseph Hewitt, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Caribou, said Sunday evening. “That will make snow removal and driving near impossible at times.”
State government offices will be closed until at least noon today, and scores of public schools were expected to be closed as well.
Nor was snow the only danger. Maine’s first statewide winter storm was accompanied by bitterly cold temperatures that drove wind chill values well below zero in many areas.
The storm was expected to blanket the state with anywhere from 10 to 24 inches of snow, with the highest accumulations in areas from Baxter State Park to Houlton. At the height of the storm, snow was predicted to fall at a rate of 2 to 3 inches per hour.
Weather service forecasters said that strong winds and crosswinds could create dangerous conditions on open highways, and that blowing snow would hamper snow removal efforts and create deep drifts on unplowed roads.
“We’ve got everybody out, which is about 450 vehicles clearing snow,” Mark Latti, spokesman for the Maine Department of Transportation, said Sunday evening. Latti echoed Gov. John Baldacci’s recommendation that people avoid unnecessary travel.
“The fact that it is a weekend and there are not as many vehicles on the roads means it is easier for our crews to keep the roads clear,” Latti said.
In Hancock and Washington counties, several cars slid off roads Sunday afternoon as the snow began to build up on the pavement.
An Orland woman injured her foot when her car slid off Route 1 west of Ellsworth, according to Ellsworth police Officer Chris Smith.
He said that Deborah Sheehan, 52, was driving a 2000 Chevrolet Blazer west on the highway around 2:30 p.m. when a car in front of her began to slide out of control. Sheehan tapped her brakes, slid off the road, traveled down an embankment and hit a pine tree head-on, Smith said.
Sheehan was able to get out of the vehicle and make her way back up to the edge of the road before help arrived, according to the officer. He said he was unsure if she was wearing a seat belt but that both air bags in the Blazer deployed. Sheehan was transported by County Ambulance to Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth for treatment, he said.
Smith estimated the Blazer was demolished in the accident.
The vehicle in front of Sheehan was not involved in the accident, Smith said. The driver of that car kept on going and may not have realized an accident had occurred, he said.
Information on other accidents Down East was unavailable late Sunday afternoon, but none were believed to be life-threatening, according to dispatchers with the sheriff’s departments in Hancock and Washington counties.
The storm prompted widespread closures and postponements even before the snow began falling heavily. Municipalities enacted parking bans to make for easier plowing, while civic organizations, churches, sports leagues and other groups canceled events.
Baldacci announced that state government offices would open at noon today, with a decision on a possible full-day closure to be made by midmorning.
In Bangor, an annual memorial service for the homeless was postponed until today, while several synagogues in the city canceled parties marking the first night of Hanukkah.
The storm also rolled in on one of the busiest shopping days of the holiday season.
Some stores and businesses closed early to allow employees to make it home before the heaviest snow arrived. But the weather wasn’t keeping all shoppers away.
Brad Ryder, owner of Epic Sports in Bangor, said his business didn’t die down until after 4 p.m. Sunday — several hours after the storm began in earnest in the city. Ryder acknowledged some of that may be due to the type of clientele drawn to his outdoor sports store, and he said selling ice scrapers and other winter gear probably helped.
“We enjoyed good business yesterday and today, and we hope to continue right up to Christmas,” Ryder said.
In addition to the snow, the state was also dealing with frigid temperatures, particularly in northern areas.
The temperature in Allagash early Sunday was 35 below. It hit 34 below in Van Buren and 29 below in Presque Isle. The lowest reading — 40 below zero — was recorded on Big Black River in northwest Aroostook County.
An added twist to Sunday’s storm was the possibility of “thunder snow,” a relatively rare event where thunder and lightning occur during a snowstorm, meteorologist John Cannon said. Lightning was expected to light up the sky in places during the storm Sunday evening.
The storm was expected to clear out from south to north beginning late Sunday night through today.
Sunday’s storm was the second in three days to hit the state. On Friday, a storm dropped 6 to 10 inches of snow in much of southern Maine but spared northern sections.
BDN reporter Bill Trotter and The Associated Press contributed to this story.