A pickup truck skidded off an ice- and snow-covered stretch of Interstate 95 northbound Thursday morning, crossed the median and collided with a tractor-trailer in the southbound lane, killing the pickup’s teenage driver, police said.

Harry Depew, 19, of Dixmont was driving north at about 9:30 a.m. in a Ford F-150 when he lost control of the truck in snowy weather. He then careened across the 15-foot-wide median separating the northbound and southbound lanes of I-95 near the Bangor-Hermon line, police said.

The tractor-trailer, driven by an employee of Hartt Transportation Systems Inc. of Bangor, was heading south and struck the pickup head-on, sending both vehicles into a ditch.

Depew was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Maine State Police Lt. Wesley Hussey. His family was notified by midafternoon Thursday, but Hussey didn’t know where Depew was headed or where he was coming from.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, Donald Nugent, 51, of Milo, was not injured. A spokesperson at Hartt did not return a call Thursday for comment.

The fatal crash closed the I-95 southbound lanes briefly and stalled traffic well into the afternoon while a reconstruction team sorted through the wreckage. Both vehicles were significantly damaged, and the pickup truck sat under a blue tarp by late morning.

“We really don’t know what caused the accident,” Hussey said later Thursday. “But it’s pretty hard to reconstruct on icy roads. We are speaking to some witnesses who saw the accident from the other lanes.”

For most of the morning and early afternoon, the tractor-trailer remained blocking one of the southbound lanes, slowing traffic. Hussey said the truck’s cargo – approximately 25 large rolls of paper – was transferred to another truck.

The accident was one of many reported to police Thursday morning as a short but intense band of snow showers crept into eastern Maine, National Weather Service meteorologist Ken Wallingford said.

“This was not a big storm, but snow fell heavy and hard for a while, making the roads very slippery,” Wallingford said Thursday afternoon.

“These types of storms are very hard to forecast,” he added. “They don’t show up in our model data, so when they happen we’re just trying to scramble to catch up.”

About 4 inches of snow fell in the Bangor area in a two-hour span Thursday morning, Wallingford said. He predicted that the storm would taper off by early afternoon Thursday and expected only possible snow showers for the next few days.

Poor road conditions also were said to be a factor in a series of Thursday morning accidents on I-95 near Waterville, according to police.

State police closed the northbound lanes of I-95 in Waterville after a chain-reaction accident involving a number of vehicles, including two Department of Transportation trucks, clogged traffic. No serious injuries were reported in those accidents, which involved at least 25 vehicles, police said.

Nineteen of them – 11 passenger vehicles and eight trucks – were caught in a pileup on the bridge over Messalonskee Stream, and at least six vehicles crashed in a 3-mile stretch of road just south of the major pileup, police said.

State police troopers were busy responding to reports of crashes involving another 20 vehicles along the stretch of interstate between Orono and Hampden, said Stephen McCausland, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman.

About 50 accidents were reported in Penobscot County as of 4 p.m. Thursday, according to a dispatcher.

A high school student demolished his 1996 Saab convertible Thursday morning when slippery roads sabotaged a convenience store run.

Elan Gabel-Richards, 17, of Lamoine was headed at 7:22 a.m. to the Somesville One-Stop on Route 198 when his car slid off the road and struck a telephone pole, Officer Chris Smith of the Mount Desert Police Department said.

Gabel-Richards, who was wearing a seat belt, was not injured. The vehicle had an estimated $10,000 in damage.

In Washington County, an extra deputy from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department was called out to assist the state police. Cars had either slid off the road or been involved in fender benders.

State police had their hands full with several minor accidents and people off the road on Route 9 between Beddington and Wesley.

In the Jonesport area, there was an accident on Route 1A with minor injuries.

The Associated Press and BDN writers Diana Graettinger, Katherine Cassidy and Abigail Curtis contributed to this report.