Cold weather in store as December begins with blanket of snow
With about two feet of snow on the ground in much of Aroostook County, sub-freezing temperatures and the first snow day for schools and government offices, the winter is off to great start for outdoor recreationists.
The Nordic Heritage Center cross country ski trails are open, Bigrock is opening early on Dec. 10, and volunteers with snowmobile clubs are out and about clearing fallen trees and beginning grooming, with some of the Aroostook Valley rail trail already done.
At Aroostook State Park, crews were still clearing branches and trees from ski trails after the Dec. 1 storm, but said to call before the weekend of Dec. 9, as they may be open before then. The snowshoe trails at the park are open and in good shape, as are the snowshoe trails at the Nordic Heritage Center. Quoggy Jo Ski Hill in Presque Isle is slated to open on Dec. 26 and will be running 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the MSAD 1 holiday week.
The set of storms in the week after Thanksgiving brought a good deal of snow to The County, with 33.5 inches falling at the National Weather Service station in Caribou.
The back-to-back storms on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 kept municipal and state plow trucks busy, and challenged people who were driving in the midst of snow-covered roads and snowfall, including workers at The Aroostook Medical Center. TAMC and its departments remained opened, although there were many rescheduled appointments, according to a hospital spokesperson.
The Presque Isle Police Department fielded a range of calls throughout the storms, with half-a-dozen vehicles stuck off the road and complaints of mismanaged snow blocking a driveway.
The only major traffic incident was a crash in Westfield that led to minor injuries. On Dec. 1, a 17-year-old driving a pickup truck with her mom south on Route 1 crashed into 77-year-old Albert Gatto, who was driving north in a Volvo tractor trailer. The 17-year-old, who has not been identified because she is a juvenile, was driving “too fast for conditions” and lost traction going uphill, which led to the vehicle skidding, spinning around and colliding with Gatto’s tractor trailer, the police said.
The impact left the vehicles significantly damaged, and the juvenile and her mother transported to The Aroostook Medical Center for minor injuries, while Gatto was uninjured, according to police.
There is no major storm on the immediate horizon for northern Maine, but frigid temperatures are expected this weekend, with highs of 16 degrees Fahrenheit and overnight lows in the single digits in Caribou
Dec. 5 saw the first sub-zero temperature of the winter, with -1 degrees Fahrenheit measured as the low temperature in Caribou Monday morning. On average in Caribou, there are 37 nights each winter with a sub-zero low, according to the National Weather Service. Dec. 12 is the average first sub-zero day of the winter in Caribou, and last winter the the first sub-zero temperature recorded on Jan. 4th.
