New statewide snowfall record set in Eastport, Maine: Over 6ft in 10 days

© Don Dunbar

Snow was piled up on sidewalks of Eastport on Tuesday, after a major storm brought several inches of snow to the small city in Washington County.

Seventy-six inches and counting.

That's how much snow has fallen in Eastport since Jan. 25, which is a new 10-day record for documented snowfall anywhere in Maine. The previous record of 71 inches was set more than 50 years ago at Ripogenus Dam, just west of Baxter State Park in Piscataquis County, over a 10-day period, from late December 1962 to early January 1963, according to the National Weather Service.

Victor Nouhan, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Caribou, emphasized Wednesday the amount of data and information available to the federal agency is limited, so he cannot say whether Eastport's 76 inches is the most snowfall ever in Maine in a week and a half. He said the Fryeburg area got an exceptionally heavy dumping of snow in February 1969, which may rival the amount that officially has been measured in Eastport.

Regardless of whether Eastport's snowfall total ever has been exceeded - there have been reports of heavy snowstorms in New England dating back several centuries - the amount the easternmost city in the United States has received since late January is "extremely unusual" in recent history, Nouhan said. Having repeated storms in a short period of time that all follow the same path is not typical.

There are a couple of factors that could explain it. One, Nouhan said, is that water far offshore in the Atlantic is warmer than average, which could be helping to steer storms over the Gulf of Maine that otherwise would veer offshore further south. Another is a "deeper" or more southerly wind trough in the upper atmosphere, which enables weather systems to pick up more moisture over the Gulf of Mexico and the southeast coast before they turn northeast toward Cape Cod.

Eastport, Nouhan added, has been right in the firing line of the recent storms as they travel northeast and bear down on Atlantic Canada. The bands of snow that are generated as the ocean storms approach land often are heaviest along the coast, he said, similar to "lake-effect" snowfall in states or Canadian provinces that abut the Great Lakes.

"If the storms take the same track, the ocean doesn't freeze over so there's no shortage of moisture," the forecaster said.

Nouhan said the intensity of the snowfall in coastal and Down East Maine is not necessarily a new thing, because weather patterns can take decades or even 100 years to complete a cycle.

He said there are several historical reports of multiple storms repeatedly dumping snow in New England during the past 300 years. Some of these storms, such as the Great Snow of 1717, could have dumped more snow in Maine, he said, with local accumulations that either went unnoticed or were not scientifically documented.

"This is not unprecedented," he said.

But Eastport residents might not be taking much time to consider Maine's snowfall history, given predictions for their immediate future. According to forecasts, parts of Washington County, including Eastport, are expected to get another 6 to 8 inches of snow by Thursday evening.

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