Updated Dec. 26 at 2:35 p.m.
Despite an expectation of “light and fluffy” snow from today’s storm, both the National Weather Service and Central Maine Power are anticipating the snowfall could affect power restoration efforts.
“[The snow] will make power restoration efforts more difficult due to increased weight on the trees and power lines and poor traveling conditions for road crews,” an NWS Winter Weather Advisory reads. A press release from CMP issued at 9 p.m. Dec. 25 echoes those concerns.
CMP estimates 127,000 of its customers lost power at some point during this week’s ice storm, according to the release.
Outages in Lincoln County reached as high as 7103 on Dec. 24, but have dropped to just under 1000 at 2:20 p.m.
NWS snowfall predictions for Dec. 26 vary from less than 1.5 inches in the Boothbay Harbor to two to four inches on the Bristol peninsula and ranging from four to six inches in central and northern regions.
Despite current temperatures near and above freezing in coastal sections, a cooling trend into the evening and very cold atmospheric temperatures will help keep the snow light, according to NWS Hydrometerological Technician James Brown.
“Where snow is being produced, it’s very cold up above,” Brown said. “Where’s it’s coming through it’s going to be light and fluffy.”
Wind speeds around the county are southerly from the 10 to 15 mile per hour range in southern sections down to five to 10 miles per hour in the north, according to the NWS. Wind speeds are not predicted to change substantially, but winds are predicted to become northwesterly into the evening.
CMP is predicting a majority of customers will have power restored by tonight, but some customers in rural or inaccessible areas may not have it back until Friday, Dec. 27, according to the release. Snowfall could delay restoration for some customers as well, the release cautions.
The number of outages in Lincoln County has experienced a downward trend since Monday.
The northern end of the county had the most outages due to the ice storm. Somerville and Whitefield were entirely without power on Dec. 24, trailed closely by Dresden and Jefferson with outages of more than 98 percent.
As of 2:20 p.m., Somerville remained in the worst shape for Lincoln County with nearly 97 percent of its customers without power, according to CMP. It also lead the county’s towns with a total of 305 customers affected.
Estimated outages of all CMP customers were at 21,000 at 11 a.m. today, according to a Dec. 26 release from the company. That number was down from an 87,000 peak Tuesday morning.
With ice already built up on trees and more weight coming from snow, Forester Patty Cormier, of the Maine Forest Service, says hardwoods are the most susceptible to damage.
“The hardwood trees are more susceptible to breakage, even without their leaves, just because of their particular structure as opposed to conifers with thin needles. They have more of a pliable twig system,” Cormier said.
Certain hardwoods such as Norway Maple have a weaker structure, and smaller shrubs such as lilacs are at risk of breaking easily, she said.
White and grey birch trees are also susceptible to damage, but from bending rather than breaking, Cormier said.
“Once it’s bent over more than 30 degrees, it’s not going to recover from that,” Cormier said. The trees will not be able to bend back up even after the ice melts.
“They just cannot recover at a certain point,” she said.
People who have what they consider a valuable tree – such as one in their yard – can have an arborist “cable” their trees by securing limbs prone to breaking to the trunk, but it may be too late for this storm, Cormier said.
“At this point it’s kind of just a waiting game, there’s really not much you can do,” Cormier said.
“Individual trees, such as birch, you can try to knock the snow off them, and if they’re off a size that you can do it, you can prop them up again, but usually the trees are too large to do that,” she said.
The Lincoln County News will continue to follow this weather event and post more information as it becomes available.