DICKEY – The snow is melting and meteorologists from the National Weather Service office in Caribou said last week that they expect widespread minor flooding throughout Aroostook County.

This year the NWS will rely not only on visits to rivers, streams and lakes to monitor the rise of water levels, but a new technological tool also will be used – a webcam.

Mark Turner, a hydrologist at the NWS office, said earlier this week that a webcam recently was installed at Dickey Village and pointed in a northerly direction across the St. John River with the Dickey Bridge. The camera updates every 20 minutes to allow viewers to get a look at the movement of the St. John River.

The webcam was paid for by support from the Maine Department of Transportation and the Allagash Historical Society.

To access the webcam, visitors can log on to www.erh.noaa.gov/car/. In the blue banner on the left-hand side of the page is a link to “Rivers & Lakes, Local AHPS Obs & Forecasts.” After clicking on that, the “Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service” page for northern Maine is displayed. Click on the map icon nearest Dickey to get to the page for the St. John River at Dickey. Below the data graph there is a link “NOTE: Dickey JamCam available courtesy of Maine DOT – click here.” This link displays the most current image from the camera.

As of Wednesday afternoon, all was quiet on the river.

The NWS office in Caribou announced last week that officials are expecting widespread minor flooding throughout The County, including in the basements of houses, in parking lots, and around streams and brooks.

Thus far, however, there have been no problems and no reports of flooding.

“All streams and rivers are rising very slowly at this point,” Lee Foster, a meteorologist with the NWS, said Wednesday. “We expect they will continue to rise very slowly and we don’t expect any problems for the rest of this week.”

jlbdn@ainop.com

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