Sub-zero week for The County
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
It seemed like nowhere in The County was safe this week from Jack Frost’s icy fingers; Tuesday morning bore the worst chill of the week with temperatures as low as 22 degrees below zero in Presque Isle, 20 below in Houlton and 15 below in Caribou, according to officials at the National Weather Service’s Caribou office.
While week-long temperature data was unavailable for Presque Isle, the city’s neighbor to the north experienced below-normal lows.
Temperatures dipped down to 15 below zero in Caribou on Feb. 8 and 14 degrees below on Feb. 13 before hitting the week’s low on Tuesday morning of 15 below.
Houlton experienced an even chillier week, dropping down to minus 18 on Feb. 8, five degrees below zero on Feb. 11 and negative 11 degrees on Feb. 13 before bottoming out at 20 below on Tuesday morning.
While “heating up” may be a slight misnomer, the region looks to do just that this week.
Caribou’s forecasted to heat up considerably with tomorrow’s anticipated high of 35 degrees and a high of 32 on Friday and Saturday.
If Caribou looks to be heating up, than Houlton’s approaching nearly T-shirt weather this week (for February, anyway) with a high of 36 degrees forecasted for today, a high of 38 tomorrow, a high of 33 degrees on Friday and a high of 34 degrees on Saturday.
While the warm weather is a welcome reprieve from the cold snap of last week, it comes with a caution; Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Office in Caribou, Noelle Runyan, explained that what often comes with winter warm-ups is an increased chance of snow.
Caribou is looking at snowfall all week according to the NWS forecast, and Houlton’s looking at snow on Thursday and Friday.
