FORT KENT – Road crews, local and state, are being tested one more time this week by the worst that winter can bring to the northern reaches of the state.

The end of December and early January brought snow to the area, and last weekend saw record 50-degree temperatures and a record 2 inches of rain that wreaked havoc on roads.

This week it’s ice- and water-covered roads that have made some stretches hazardous to drive and challenged road crews.

There’s an old saying in northern Maine that it’s better to get 2 feet of snow in the winter than an inch of water. Whoever said that must have been thinking about winter 2006.

“Roads are bad, with ice and lots of water that has frozen and is still freezing,” Galen Costigan, Aroostook County division engineer with the Maine Department of Transportation, said Tuesday. “Crews have been going since last Friday, and they are still working at getting the ice off the roads.

“Secondary roads are the ones we have the most problems with,” he said. “The further north you go, the worse they are, especially Routes 1, 161 and 162 in the St. John Valley.”

Some of the road crews have been putting in 20-hour days since the weekend.

There are still major problems with ice on the roads, Costigan said. Some areas have ice up to 6 inches thick, and more than that in problem areas.

Costigan said the problem was the 2 inches of rain that fell on Saturday atop 3 feet of snow, causing massive melting.

The worst areas, the road manager explained, are where runoff could not get to the ditches. The water came from fields and hills, spilling onto roads where ditches were already filled with snow and ice.

Water built up on roads and then froze when the record high temperatures on Saturday plunged to the deep freeze by Sunday night.

“It was a combination of all the snow, rain and then the big melt,” Costigan said. “The water had nowhere to go in some places and it built up on the roads.

“It froze,” he said. “The men are attacking it, doing all they can.”

The sun was helping Tuesday, allowing salt to work at the thick ice.

The bad news was that more rain and freezing rain is in the forecast for Wednesday.

“That combination won’t help,” Costigan said. “The guys are cutting as much of the ice as they can.

“I just hope we don’t start having equipment – and even worse, men – breaking down,” he said. “Some of these men having been working 20 hours a day.”

It wasn’t any better for municipal crews. “We’ve had a hard time with the water and ice,” Fort Kent Town Manager Donald Guimond said Tuesday. “Rain in the winter doesn’t do anyone any good, certainly not us.

“We’ve had a lot of problems,” he said. “Right now we are OK, but we have ditches that are full of ice and culverts are frozen.”

He said his four-man crew goes after problems as quickly as they can and that conditions were OK but not great Tuesday afternoon.

Guimond said this has been the worst winter in the 13 years he’s been on the job. “Our men are doing a great job, but they are burnt out,” he said.

Guimond said at least one of his men has ended up in the hospital.

Duane Wolfe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Caribou, said temperatures reached 50 degrees Saturday and dropped to 6 degrees by Sunday afternoon.

“Temperatures dropped significantly in a short period of time,” Wolfe said. “We also had up to 2 inches of rain on Saturday.

“Record temperatures on Saturday,” he said. “Deep freeze by Sunday night.”

On Sunday the area also had winds of more than 20 miles per hour, and gusts to 35 miles per hour.

Wolfe said the area can expect freezing rain, sleet, high winds and snow on Wednesday, expected to start anytime after 9 a.m.