CARIBOU, Maine — Karen McGillicuddy of Caribou said Monday that she could still remember eating her leftover Halloween candy with her sisters as she watched the snow pile up in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
“I would wake up to the smell of the turkey roasting and look out the window and see enough snow to make a snowman,” she recalled of years past. “My sisters and I would play in the snow with our cousins and other relatives all the way up until it was time for Thanksgiving dinner.”
McGillicuddy acknowledged that such scenes occurred “a number of years ago,” and meteorologists at the National Weather Service said Monday that a snowy Thanksgiving in Aroostook County has been observed only 15 percent of the time. The snowiest Thanksgiving was in 1987, when 11.8 inches of snow was observed.
Mark Bloomer, meteorologist at the NWS in Caribou, said Monday that at this point, there is not much snow in the area, aside from thin blankets in areas of Aroostook County such as Estcourt Station.
The forecast for this Thanksgiving calls for mostly sunny skies with a high of 31 degrees in Caribou and 36 degrees in Bangor.
According to records provided by the weather service, the warmest Thanksgiving in Bangor happened in 1953 when the high temperature hit 60 degrees. The lowest was in 1974, when the temperature dipped to 7 degrees.
The normal highs recorded between Nov. 22 and 28 in Bangor in the last few decades have ranged from 40 to 43 degrees, while the lows have been 24-27 degrees.
At Caribou, the warmest Thanksgiving was in 1953 when the high temperature hit 61 degrees. The lowest temperature observed was 1 degree in 1951.
Typically, the normal highs in Caribou from Nov. 22-28 range between 33 and 35 degrees. The normal lows for the same dates in Caribou have been 19-22.
Eric Sinsabaugh, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, said Monday that southern Maine saw a bit of wet snow earlier in the month but it did not last. He too said that a white Thanksgiving was not likely in the forecast this year.
