Five days after a nor’easter brought high winds and coastal flooding to parts of Maine, another storm is expected to bring to most of the state what the one before did not: heavy amounts of snow.
Western parts of the state could get nearly 20 inches of snow, starting late Wednesday and continuing into Thursday, according to weather forecasts Tuesday morning. More than a foot of snow could fall in the Greater Portland and Bangor areas, according to the National Weather Service.
“Not as much wind is expected as the last storm,” Eric Sinsabauth, a meteorologist in the NWS office in Gray, said Tuesday.
The weather service has issued winter storm warnings for much of the Northeast. All but two counties in Maine are in the warning area. Winter storm watches have been issued for Washington and southern Aroostook counties.
Two low-pressure systems — one blowing east from the Midwest and another bringing wet weather up along the eastern seaboard — are expected to produce mixed precipitation along the coast that will change to snow as temperatures drop during the night Wednesday.
“Heavy snow [is] expected,” forecasters in the NWS office in Gray wrote in the storm warning. “Travel will be very difficult to impossible, including during the morning commute on Thursday. Total snow accumulations of 12 to 18 inches are expected. Locally higher amounts over 20 inches are possible inland with snowfall along the immediate coast of 6 to 12 inches.”
Around a foot of snowfall is predicted for much of the coast. Eastport in eastern Washington County could get between 4 and 8 inches of snow.
Further north, snowfall estimates range from 3 to 5 inches in Aroostook County, to possibly around a foot of snow for Millinocket and Greenville.
Sinsabauth said daytime temperatures following the storm should be above freezing through next weekend. There will be cloud cover throughout Maine through the weekend, but temperatures will range from the mid-30s to low 40s Fahrenheit from north to south.
“That should melt some of it,” he said of the expected dumping of new snow.
This story appears through a media sharing agreement with Bangor Daily News.