A storm that dropped every variety of precipitation on Lincoln County is moving out of the area with a final burst of wind, snowfall and rain — causing slushy road conditions and traffic accidents as the evening commute approaches.
The departing weather burst was significant enough to warrant a special advisory from the National Weather Service (NWS) issued at 11:49 a.m. for the midcoast region warning of a band of heavy precipitation affecting the area between noon and 4 p.m. with snowfall up to one inch per hour, high winds and low visibility.
Radar images monitored at 12:10 p.m. on intellicast.com indicated a sudden changeover from rain to snow for most of the county, and observers reported a blitz of heavy, wet snowflakes in many areas. At 2:35 p.m. radar images indicated that rain and snowfall was exiting Lincoln County on a northeasterly course, with the storm line crossing the Rt. 32 corridor.
Plow trucks were hard at work clearing roads and spreading sand and salt in an effort to safeguard local roads before residents began to return home from work during the evening commute.
Up to the storm’s final hours, no major incidents and only one traffic accident had been reported in Lincoln County during the storm, according to the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency (LCEMA).
However, beginning at approximately 12:15 p.m. traffic accident reports and requests for road sanding began pouring in the Lincoln County Communications Center (LCCC).
By 1:30 p.m. first responders had responded to the scenes of nine traffic accidents in the county, with the most serious being two roll-overs on Rt. 220 south and on 220 north in Waldoboro. The accidents included five in Waldoboro, one in Nobleboro, one in Edgecomb and two in Boothbay (at the most recent count). No serious injuries were reported as a result of the accidents at the time of this posting.
At approximately 2:30 p.m. additional traffic collisions were reported in Jefferson and Alna and two vehicles were reported off the road at other locations in Lincoln County. Again, at 2:57 p.m. the call went out for emergency assistance at a traffic collision on the Biscay Road in Bremen.
Additional sand for slushy roads were being requested at the intersection of Rt. 27 and Rt. 1 and areas of Rt. 27 in Edgecomb, Rt. 96 in Boothbay, both scenes on Rt. 220 in Waldoboro, and Rt. 1 in the area of “Harold C. Ralph hill” in Waldoboro. There were several reports of numerous vehicles sliding out of control in those areas.
On the bright side, the wet snowfall and rain has yet to cause any reported power outages, according to Central Maine Power (CMP)
The continual transitions between rain and snow during the storm were caused by a classic two-part weather system that moved through the area while temps held steady in the upper 20’s and mid-30’s, and a wind from the east carried warmer air from the ocean that continued through the duration of the event.
The ocean breeze kept temps above freezing in the lower levels of the atmosphere and up to 25 miles inland, according to forecasters. So, while freezing temps aloft caused precipitation to fall initially as snow, those snowflakes often reached the ground in some melted or partially melted form – such as rain or sleet.
That combination of elements changed when the storm began to leave the area and the wind changed to a chillier east-northeast, allowing the precipitation to quickly freeze up, and causing the hazardous road conditions.
Scattered precipitation in various forms is expected to linger into Thursday evening, according to the NWS. The original forecast for snowfall accumulation was at 3-6 inches for the Lincoln County area, according to the NWS. No local snowfall totals were available at the time of this posting.
The Lincoln County News website will continue to follow the progress of this storm and post any additional developments here as soon as they become available.
