Parts of Maine will have as much as 18 inches of snow on the ground by early Friday if a storm the National Weather Service is tracking holds course and hits the state on Thursday.
The storm headed to Maine developed from a powerful squall that spawned tornadoes from Texas to Alabama, killing at least six people and leaving thousands without power. It was expected to make landfall on southern New Jersey’s coast by midnight Wednesday, said Ken Wallingford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Caribou.
The center of the storm is expected to be near Cape Cod by Thursday afternoon. By midnight Thursday, when the center closes on the western coast of Nova Scotia, northern Maine should be well on its way to receiving eight to 18 inches of snow, Wallingford said.
“It looks like a good old-fashioned nor’easter,” Wallingford said Wednesday. “Everybody will get a good swath of snow.”
Eight-inch accumulations of snow on Thursday, Wallingford said, will likely start in the Ellsworth area, but the coast will also see rain and some fairly heavy winds of 20 to 30 mph. Gusts will top out at around 50 mph in those coastal areas, he said.
“For folks on the immediate coast, this storm may have more wind than precipitation impact,” Wallingford said, “and when you get away from the coast, there will be the usual blowing and drifting, but we are not expecting blizzard conditions or anything like that.”
The heaviest accumulations will likely occur farthest north, in the Mount Katahdin, Greenville and Houlton areas, said Tim Duda, a weather service meteorologist.
Lesser accumulations of 2 to 6 inches will occur along the coast of Hancock and Washington counties. From Bangor east to Topsfield and Danforth, residents will likely get 10 to 14 inches. The Dover-Foxcroft, Lincoln Lakes regions and areas south of Houlton will likely get 14 to 18 inches of snow, Duda said.
All of this means fun for state snowmobilers and money for the snowmobile industry, said Bob Meyers, executive director of the Maine Snowmobile Association.
Storms last week created snowmobiling conditions from Millinocket up to the Canadian border, if not bases upon which conditions can be built, Meyers said.
Volunteer trail groomers working for many MSA-affiliated clubs — the backbone of the state’s snowmobiling industry — have told Meyers they will be out on trails by this weekend creating good snowmobile conditions, he said.
“There is an excellent base in many areas and I think some people have mistaken the lack of activity [on snowmobile trails] with lack of snow,” Meyers said. “Some of the grooming took a back seat to Christmas, which is appropriate, but from what we are hearing, everybody is gearing up to be ready for New Year’s Eve weekend.”
Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway announced Wednesday that because of the snowstorm, a job fair scheduled for Thursday at the casino has been canceled and the facility’s Epic Buffet will be closed. The second night of the job fair scheduled for 5-9 p.m. Friday will take place as scheduled.
The Epic Buffet will reopen for regular hours beginning at 11 a.m. Friday, the casino said.
The Bloomberg news service contributed to this report.
The media loves to spin any snowstorm into “Snowpocalypse’ or ‘Snowmageddon’. Just make the headline “No need to prepare, Everyone in the storms path will die!”
i don’t really think that this article said what you seem to be saying it did.
Agreed. And now winter storms are even given names just as hurricanes are.
Hmmm. Who’s doing the spinning?
Don’t forget the TWC who enjoys naming Winter Storms now to add some extra drama into all of this.
Strangely, this comment is attached to an article in which an upcoming snowstorm is expected to be quite unspectacularly typical.
I cannot wait for some white stuff. This is Maine and I look forward to the snow every winter.
I can’t wait either, its about time!!
‘The center of the storm is expected to be near Cape Cod’
the Realtor laughing told me it never snows,it rains instead on the cape,
Nothing said about what the precip will be on the cape. If the Maine coast will get rain, the Cape probably will too.
‘Dont go out if you dont have to go out’
Why would someone go out? if they dont have to go out?
Why are you making up false things to quote? There is nothing in the story that reads. ‘Dont go out if you dont have to go out’
Because people are still stupid enough to do it, them folks in Southern Maine couldn’t handle the Christmas stuff, can’t wait to see how they are going to handle this.
I must go play in it……. :)
After I read this whole article, I realized that it was basically a public service announcement for the highly profitable Hollywood Slots and it’s starchy Epic Buffet. Not really sure why they were the only Bangor restaurant mentioned in this article about a pending snowstorm, but having read it makes me fairly sure that they have some influence over the guy that wrote this, or the editor that approved it.
Has someone kidnapped you? Your comments have become very strange lately.
… or they were the only place that called back, or had anything out of the ordinary to report vis-à-vis their plans for the next couple of days, before deadline. Sometimes a cigar, etc.
If that’s the case, then what is the story that’s being reported? A non-event?
Hey, unless you’re Fox News, you’ve gotta work with what’s actually happening… or not happening, as the case may be. Anyway, complaining that the news isn’t newsy enough is just silly, particularly when you didn’t even have to pay for it.
Actually the job fair is a bigger deal.A lot of people going to that would have public transport/no cars.If you want to talk about influence,what about the big splashy article about some old men playing cards in FF?A COMPLETE waste of space so someone’s grandpa could get in there.
:)
Bring ‘er on. I can handle 18 feet. It’s only the wimps that whine about our getting 18 inches.
How is the storm going to “make landfall on Southern Jersey’s Coast” when it’s always been a land storm? Will it sneak around and come in from the east?
If it hit South Jersey, it would get so drunk/wasted it would probably get disoriented and head out to sea
Typical Maine winter weather nothing more nothing less–nothing to see here folks keep moving please.
Wow, no school cancellations this morning…..oh, wait a minute, school vacation….I better not see any parents taking the kids to the mall in this storm…..Is Marden’s going to open today??
Just out of curiosity, what’re you planning to do if you do see any? Call the police?
No….it was in relation to the storm last week when Lewiston / Auburn did not cancel and a bunch of parents were outspoken about it…..usually on school cancellation days the mall seems to have an increase in young shoppers…..just seemed interesting at the time….sorry to spark your curiosity for nothing……
Ah ,those good old-fashioned winters! “When I was a boy” nearly seven decades ago, my elders – meaning my great grandmother, who was born in 1858 and remembered hearing of Lincoln’s death at the age we were when she told us – spoke of “good old-fashioned” winters they remembered their elders mentioning in their childhood. So, just when did those good old-fashioned winters occur? The “little ice age” of the sixteen hundred, perhaps?