Big snowstorm could hit Maine this weekend

By BDN staff and wire report

A major ocean storm moving up the East Coast could dump buckets of snow across Maine this weekend.

A hazardous weather outlook has been issued for the entire state in anticipation of the weekend storm, according to the National Weather Service.

Weather service forecasters remain uncertain about key details of the storm, because it’s unclear whether the storm will swing farther offshore or hit the coast, the weather service office in Gray said Wednesday night.

That means we still don’t know the precise times the storm will blow into Maine and go roaring out, how much snow it will dump, and its exact trajectory. It’s currently expected to reach Maine sometime on Saturday and linger into Sunday.

But forecasters at the weather service office in Caribou, while stressing the high degree of uncertainty that remains, predict that there’s a more than 75 percent chance for 6 inches or more of snow far Down East, falling toward 50 percent for the Penobscot Valley and around 30 percent for the Aroostook borderlands.

Forecasters are “more certain” of the threat of looming high winds, which could lead to power outages, blowing snow, erosion and coastal flooding.