AUGUSTA, Maine — While the calendar indicates that spring will officially arrive on Friday, plenty of signs of winter remain along Maine’s rivers.
Thanks to a long winter of freezing temperatures and snowstorms, the potential for spring flooding remains high, as was discussed during the state’s River Flow Advisory Commission conference call in Augusta on Thursday.
According to Tom Hawley, a forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Gray forecast center, the trend of below-normal temperatures, which has occurred since late January, is expected to continue through the end of the month.
Recent snow surveys have showed eastern and coastal sections of the state currently have five to eight inches of snowpack water content, while communities in the western mountains have between seven and eight inches.
Despite the fact that flood potential is normal at this point, Hawley cautioned that the threat may rise the longer snow remains on the ground and ice on rivers.
“The farther we go into the spring season, now we’re talking about going into April with a large snowpack and a lot of ice on the rivers, the greater the threat for flooding becomes,” Hawley said during the conference call.
“As time goes on here we’re going to see the flood threat increase,” Hawley added.
No significant rain-making events are in the forecast over the next eight to 10 days, Hawley said.
River and stream runoff is also below normal for this time of year, according to Greg Stewart of the U.S. Geological Survey.
“If we got a big rain event right now, we wouldn’t see much runoff because the snow would absorb it,” said Stewart.
The USGS was on the Penobscot River on Wednesday collecting data for the Coast Guard, and the Coast Guard plans to arrive in the Bangor area next week with their boat Thunder Bay in attempt to break ice along the river.
