Blizzard — Interior York, Maine

2022-01-29 · Interior York, Maine

Event narrative

Light snow began on the morning of the 29th, with the intensity of snowfall picking up after daybreak. An intense band of snow developed around mid morning over southern New England and remained mostly over the Gulf of Maine until midday. The band backed into coastal and Midcoast Maine and remained relatively stationary until into the evening. Heavy snowfall combined with north northwest winds gusting between 40 and 60 mph to produce near-whiteout conditions at times. The Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport measured a peak wind gust of 44 mph before the wind sensor stopped reporting. Blizzard conditions were most prevalent in the mid to late afternoon hours. By the time snow tapered off in the evening snowfall ranged from 8 to 12 inches.

Wider weather episode

Low pressure formed off the Florida coast on the 28th and gradually drifted north into the evening. The storm began to rapidly strengthen as the upper trough started to take on a negative tilt very early on the 29th. The storm tracked north northeast to a position off Cape Cod where it briefly stalled before continuing on towards Nova Scotia early on the 30th. The storm remained too far to the east to bring much warm air advection precipitation to the area, but strong frontogenesis occurred in the mid levels northwest of the low center. The result was a heavy band of snowfall that more or less paralleled the coast before pivoting inland over central and Downeast Maine. In addition to the heavy snowfall, a strong northeast low level jet developed and brought damaging wind gusts to much of the coastline. Blizzard conditions occurred at the coast and towards I-95 in western Maine and near-blizzard conditions occurred well inland from there.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 998383. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.