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This update is presented by Allspeed Cyclery and Snow, located on Brighton Avenue in Portland, where their Mid-Winter Clearance sale is going on now! Check them out at allspeed.com! PTW is also follower funded by readers like you. Please consider a donation for the kind of weather coverage you won't find elsewhere. It is only because of followers and business partners that this website continues. Thank you for making my efforts worth it! Bulletins as of early Saturday morning Follow the bouncing ball. This storm has been a brain teaser to the point that my brain and others forecasting it have reached scrambled egg level. I have been involved in a few internal conversations trying to figure this mess out. I don’t think anyone of us has come up with the final answer yet, but progress is being made. As the times on the bulletins indicate, this will be a long-duration event. Get errands done today, and stay where you sleep tonight until Monday. Understand that there is also the backside wind going into Monday and Tuesday. For the north, snow will blow around and drift, with potential whiteout conditions. Travel in The County could be difficult to impossible. For the coastal plain, it could mean isolated to scattered power outages depending on snow and ice accretion. Now I am going to try to simplify a very complicated storm. Timing and precipitation type PART ONE: Saturday 4 PM (21z) to Sunday 2 PM (19z) - I am removing the precipitation type from this one-hour incremental loop because the specific times when the changeover occurs continue to vary. What remains consistent is all areas start off as snow, and fluffy at that. The general idea is for precipitation to start off at light to moderate pace and gain in intensity as the parent low near the Great Lakes moves to the east.  PART TWO: Sunday 2 PM (19z) to Monday 1 PM (18z) – Snow continues to move into northern Maine Sunday afternoon. The forecast gets tricky as we head into the late afternoon over the west and south as energy begins to transfer from the parent low to the west to a new ocean low forming in the Gulf of Maine. This is where the potential dry slot comes into play. While that is happening, northern areas are getting hammered with snowfall rates 1-2”+ an hour, and the wind is expected to pick up and start blowing it around. Precipitation ends from southwest to northeast overnight and into Monday morning.  Looking exclusively at the snowfall aspect, confidence has increased to a solid 18” for far northwestern areas and for 6”+ into York County, as a fluff factor will be involved in the overnight hours heading into Sunday. There is bust potential all over the place given the warm nose intrusion that is expected, and that impacts the SLRs (snow-to-liquid ratio). Snow may start of a fluffier consistency at the start, but as moist warm air moves in aloft, it will get progressively stickier no matter what the surface thermometer has to say.  The changeover to junk begins in southwestern areas 9-11 AM Sunday, expanding north and east by 3 PM, and by 7 PM, it will be knocking on the door of Moosehead Lake. How far northeast of there remains in question, but I am betting it nudges north of Houlton for now. As the ocean low forms and gets into gear, areas seeing junk see it flip back to snow as a parting gift, with cold air wrapping around the backside. The wind will pick up as the storm bombs out on its way to Prince Edward Island Monday morning. The coastal front is responsible for freezing rain, and guidance ideas continue to change about where that will occur. As of this post early Saturday morning, up to 3 to 4 tenths of an inch of ice is possible. Given the complicated nature of this dynamic system, that may only be determined during the event based on local observations. As I have mentioned, the closer to the coast, the trashier this storm will get, and that idea continues to play out. Stay tuned! The Wall has the latest 24/7... PTW continues only because of YOU! Always have MULTIPLE ways to receive weather alerts. Stay aware, stay on alert, and stay safe. - Mike PRINT MEDIA: Feel free to quote and cite my work here for your stories. Please give me the professional courtesy of knowing that you are referencing my material so I can read your final product and acknowledge it on my media and link it on the PTW IN MEDIA page here on the website. Feel free to send me a message via the Facebook page or Twitter (X) to get my phone number if necessary. Thank you! NOTE: The forecast information depicted on this platform is for general information purposes only for the public and is not designed or intended for commercial use. For those seeking pinpoint weather information for business operations, you should use a private sector source. For information about where to find commercial forecasters to assist your business, please message me and I will be happy to help you. |
Mike Haggett
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