It’s been a busy few weeks in the world of weather with everything from warmth to cold, rain to snow.  Spring is typically a highly variable time of year, but even by Maine standards some of the extremes have been extreme extremes.

As a storm system passes to our west up through New York on Thursday afternoon and evening a strong southerly flow of mild and moist air will continue.  The winds with this system are strong and have prompted High Wind Warnings east of Portland along the coastline.  In this area there could be some power outages and tree damage as gusts exceed 50 mph.

COASTAL FLOODING

Additionally, there are flood advisories along the coastline for the time of high tide just before midnight tonight. Coastal flooding won’t be significant, but some shore roads will have water.

RIVERS AND STREAMS

I expect about an inch of rain, but some areas could see 2 inches.  This amount of water isn’t enough to create major problems on the rivers, but could lead to some minor flooding.  Remember, the term flooding is used whether a river goes 1 inch or 1 foot into flood.  It’s important to know if you are experiencing minor, moderate or major flooding.

The image below is from the Piscataquis River around Dover-Foxcroft and you can see how fast the river is expect to rise, but also notice that the flooding is minor.  If there were more snow on the ground and we were expecting more rain, that’s when flooding could become much more problematic.

Another storm passes south of southern New England on Saturday night and could bring a few snow showers to southern Maine.  Even if these don’t occur, it’s going to be cold.  Then early next week another weather system approaches from the south and brings another chance of snow changing to rain for Monday.

Cold high pressure will build into the area during the middle of next week.  It’s interesting after a very mild winter, with not a lot of snow, that the first part of spring is looking awful with continued cold and wet weather.  This is more typical of what we’ve come to expect in April in Maine, but it seemed in early March we were destined for a nice spring, so this is even more disappointing.

The deep cold a few days ago has even damaged some of the fruit trees in parts of New England.  There will be more about this in the coming weeks and months.

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