Winter Storm — Kennebec, Maine

2022-12-16 to 2022-12-17 · Kennebec, Maine

Event narrative

Light precipitation began on the morning on the 16th, mainly as a mix of mostly rain and some snow. Steady moderate snow began in the evening on the 16th and began accumulating, first in the Belgrade Lakes region before reaching the lower Kennebec River Valley. Precipitation tapered off during the afternoon of the 17th. Snowfall totals ranged from 4 inches near Gardiner to 16 inches near Vienna.

Wider weather episode

On December 16th low pressure develop near Chesapeake Bay and slowly moved northeastward along the coast to a position near Nantucket late in the day. Eventually low pressure moved into the Gulf of Maine on December 17th and continued towards Nova Scotia. Despite a climatologically favorable track for significant snowfall, the antecedent near surface air mass was marginal for snow south of the mountains. Temperatures aloft were cool and supportive of snow, but rain mixed in south of the foothills. Due to the heavy wet snow, significant power outages occurred across interior Maine with 80,000 outages reported. Oxford, Franklin and Somerset Counties were impacted the hardest. There was a significant upslope and elevation component to snowfall totals when precipitation finally came to an end on the 17th.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1065609. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.