There were school and business closings and cancellations, but otherwise no major incidents were reported following a winter storm that began tracking through Lincoln County Weds. morning and finally left town after nightfall with some gusty winds and mixed precipitation.
Central Maine Power had reported a few power outages as of 9:27 p.m.; on the Middle Rd. in Dresden, one on Hassan Ave. and another on the North Sheepscot Rd. in Newcastle, and in isolated areas of Edgecomb and Jefferson.
While snowfall was heavy at times, up to 1-2 inches per hour according to estimates from the National Weather Service (NWS), snowfall totals fell short of forecast expectations.
At 5 p.m. NWS weather observer Arlene Cole reported 7 inches of snowfall at her Newcastle location. A weather observer for WGME channel 13 in Westport also reported accumulation of 7 inches at about the same time. At 8:13 p.m. a NWS observer in Bristol reported 9.6 inches of snowfall.
Forecast totals for the storm had ranged up to 15 inches. A Winter Storm Warning remains in effect until 7 a.m. on Thurs., but ground observation and radar images indicated that most of the snowfall had moved on by 9 p.m., although rainfall and mixed precipitation were still falling on Lincoln County.
This storm was courtesy of a low front that tracked up from Cape Cod and chugged northeasterly through the Gulf of Maine during the day, almost following the coastline. This is the same system that has been blamed for 20 deaths and left 800,000 people without power in the Midwest as a result of heavy icing. Fortunately, that degree of icing was never in the forecast for Lincoln County.