Caribou’s 14 below a March 24 record

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FORT KENT – It’s almost like adding insult to injury, but northern Maine broke another weather-related record early Monday morning thanks to a stubborn mass of cold air.

The thermometer at the Caribou office of the National Weather Service read 14 degrees below zero at 5:49 a.m., low enough for the coldest temperature on record for March 24 since 1939. The previous record low temperature for March 24 was minus 5 in 1989.

On Friday, Caribou broke the annual snowfall record when a blizzard roared through Aroostook County, dumping up to 17 inches in areas. By noon Friday, the official snowfall at Caribou was 182.5 inches, breaking the old record of 181.1. The official measurement now stands at 186.3 inches.

“It’s been an incredible year,” Lee Foster, meteorologist at the National Weather Service said. “These are not the kind of records we want to break.”

As far as the temperatures go, Caribou’s record-breaking streak actually began on Sunday when, Foster said, just before midnight the reading was 5 below zero.

“The temperatures just continued to fall through the early morning hours,” Foster said. “We just have not been able to get out of this pattern for the winter.”

As a rule, Mainers tend to think of themselves as hardy folks and accustomed to cold winters, but the double-digit subzero temperatures this late in March have many wondering if the calendar made a mistake listing March 20 as the first day of spring.

“Last night there was a cold air mass, light wind and clear skies, making it perfect for cold conditions,” Foster said. “Last night would have been cold in January.”

Though Caribou now holds the official record, weather spotters from around Maine reported numerous subzero readings.

The coldest readings came in from the far North Maine Woods where it was minus 34 at Big Black River and minus 30 at Clayton Lake.

Areas around the St. John Valley were all in the 20s below zero, and even Houlton checked in with minus 16.

Farther south it was 7 in Bangor at 7 a.m.

The large snow pack, Foster said, is partially to blame for the continued chill.

“When you have so much snow, it does not help,” he said. “The ground helps to keep things warm by holding the heat, and right now we don’t have that.”

The way things are shaping up, residents of northern Maine can expect more winterlike weather, Foster said.

If Caribou receives climatologically normal snow for the rest of the season, the 2007-08 season will end with 200.8 inches of snowfall, Foster said.

That would translate to more than 16 feet 8 inches.

At the same time, Foster said, it is likely the low temperature record for today, March 25, will be broken.

“The old record is zero,” he said. “It’s probably going to be colder than that.”

Last week’s blizzard created a number of headaches for anybody trying to get around on the roadways.

Numerous vehicle accidents were reported with no serous injuries. Heavy snow and high winds created drifts forcing the closure of several major roads and highways.

The heavy drifting also brought rail transit to a halt in the St. John Valley on Friday.

Two freight trains with the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway line got bogged down when snowdrifts covered the tracks in Grand Isle and Fort Kent.

“It was not so much the snow but the drifts and blowing that caused the problems,” Gaynor Ryan, railway vice president of human resources, said from company headquarters in Hermon on Monday afternoon. “It compacted that snow down like cement.”

Normally rail crews using massive plows and snow-removal equipment are able to keep the lines clear, Ryan said. Friday’s storm was just too much.

Ryan said it took crews bringing in extra train engines for power and old-fashioned manual labor 24 hours to clear the tracks.

“We brought in the added [engine] power to pull the trains and a lot of manpower working to dig the snow out from under the trains,” she said. “Our crews and staff in northern Maine have done an amazing job.”

The freight trains were hauling paper products, Ryan said.

For now, at least, there should be a break in the snowfall.

“It looks quiet for the rest of the week,” Foster said. “There is a storm moving up the coast, but it’s too soon to say where it will go.”

Meanwhile, the meteorologist said, people should be prepared for more winter.

“People living up here understand it can be cold,” he said. “It would be a good idea to keep those heavy winter jackets handy.”