Aroostook County residents don’t usually have to dream of a white Christmas. This year will be an exception.
After a storm earlier this month dropped around two inches of rain, Monday’s lashing wind and rain storm dissolved most of the remaining snow in the county, leaving the landscape soggy and bare.
Green holidays in northern Maine aren’t unheard of, but they are rare. Since the National Weather Service started keeping records in 1939, the Caribou office has recorded only six Christmases with less than an inch of snow on the ground. The most recent was 13 years ago in 2010.
The weather service defines a white Christmas as one having at least 1 inch of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.
After Monday’s storm, which set new records for warm temperatures and rainfall for the date in Caribou and Houlton, and with no snow immediately predicted, 2023 is likely to be the region’s seventh green holiday, forecasters said.
“I would say the chances are pretty good [for a green Christmas]. We’re looking at a very dry weather pattern coming up and it’s looking like we won’t get any snowfall before Christmas,” said Louise Fode, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Caribou.
Caribou’s high of 58 degrees on Monday topped the previous record of 54 degrees, set in 2000. Rainfall of 0.92 inches broke the record of 0.83 inches, set in 2014.
Houlton’s temperature of 59 degrees blasted the old record of 56 from 2000. Monday’s rainfall of 1.47 inches nearly doubled the town’s previous record for the date of 0.73 inches, set in 1951.
Local landscapes looked more like March on Tuesday, as wet spots and a few small snow piles dotted brown and greenish grass. Holiday decorations seemed oddly out of place poised above bare lawns.
In Presque Isle, chunks of ice floated down the open stream, and a few people meandered on dry sidewalks that are normally snow-covered this time of year. The temperature reached 55 degrees.
Monday’s strong weather system developed far south along the Eastern Seaboard, and when it moved north it brought a lot of warm air and subtropical moisture, which melted snow and ice, Fode said.
There’s no snow in the immediate forecast, but colder temperatures will return by the end of the week, she said.
“Over the next couple of days, we’re looking at returns to temperatures below freezing during the day,” she said. “The real problem is that we don’t have another storm system to bring in snow.”
The Christmas Day forecast for Caribou, Presque Isle and Houlton calls for sun and a slight warmup to 37 degrees. The St. John Valley should see sun and 33 degrees, forecasters said.
Caribou’s record high for the holiday is 48 degrees, set in both 1964 and 2003, according to weather service data. The coldest was minus 26 degrees in 1975.
Since 1939, the average depth of snow on the ground on Dec. 25 has been 8 inches in Caribou, with the deepest snow recorded in 1989 at 29 inches, the weather service reported.
Bangor started recordkeeping in 1925, and holiday weather has fluctuated from the warmest Christmas in 2003, topping 51 degrees, to minus 17 in 1980, according to weather service data.
Historically, Maine has a 61 percent to 100 percent chance of a white Christmas, according to U.S. National Weather Service reports. In far northeastern parts of the state, chances are 91 percent to 100 percent, diminishing to 76 percent to 90 percent in northeast and central portions and lower in southern Maine.
