CARIBOU, Maine — Recent above-freezing temperatures have started to melt and move the thick ice built up in the St. John and Aroostook rivers, which is causing flooding, the head forecaster for the local National Weather Service said Saturday morning.
“The ice has been crunching, moving and jamming,” Victor Nouhan, lead forecaster at the National Weather Service in Caribou, said.
“There are jams on the St. John resulting in minor road flooding on Route 161 between Allagash and St. Francis, and there is significant flooding at Washburn,” Nouhan said. “There is an ice jam just downstream at Crouseville and one just up stream.”
The ice jam above Washburn is a result of the recent release of an ice jam on the Aroostook River just up river, the forecaster said.
“We’ll be watching that throughout the day,” Nouhan said.
Ice jams can cause water to rise rapidly upriver from their location, creating flooding conditions. When the ice jam breaks up, all that backed up water is released and can cause more flooding problems in low-lying areas as it rushes downriver.
The flooding should be limited to Aroostook County, Nouhan said, and should not reach the level flooding from 24 years ago, when a massive ice jam released on the St. John River, knocking homes off their foundations, trapping others in their homes and destroying all three bridges leading in and out of the small community 40 miles west of Fort Kent.
“The problems are up here,” the forecaster said. “We’ve had a few days of pretty mild temperatures, and the damage has been done.”
Flooding Wednesday night on the Aroostook River near the Fort Fairfield and Caribou town line closed a section of Grimes Road, also known as North Caribou Road, Wednesday and Thursday.
Fort Fairfield also closed the bridge over the Aroostook River for a brief time Friday afternoon, when the ice jam on the river broke up and reformed in the center of town.
The next significant rain event is predicted for Tuesday in northern Maine. Whether the rainfall results in additional flooding will depend on how much ice is left, Nouhan said.
BDN writer Julia Bayly contributed to this report.