FARMINGTON – It wasn’t a frost that had you scraping your windshields Wednesday morning. It was a freeze.
Ice crystals blanketed the fields as temperatures hit 22 to 23 degrees from Livermore Falls up to Rangeley on Wednesday.
A dusting of snow also fell Tuesday and early Wednesday on the tops of Saddleback Mountain in Sandy River Plantation and at Sugarloaf/USA in Carrabassett Valley.
“Winter’s coming, we can’t escape it,” said National Weather Service observer Harold Souther of Livermore Falls.
It was definitely mighty frosty, he said.
It’s actually a freeze, he added.
Souther, who recorded 22 degrees Wednesday, looked back at his records and found that there had been a killing frost a year ago on the same day. But it was 25 degrees, he said, 3 degrees warmer than Wednesday.
The freeze got his flowers, he said, even though he covered them.
He recorded a temperature of 30 degrees at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night.
In no hurry’
Rangeley weather observer Tom Haggan said there was no snow so far at his location, but he could see a little bit of white at the top of Saddleback.
It got down to 23 degrees a little after midnight, Haggan said. It was a really heavy frost, he said.
The Rangeley area usually has a little bit of snow the first or second week in October, he said.
“It could happen anytime,” Haggan said. “But we’re in no hurry.”
Farmington weather observer Dennis Pike said he’d recorded 23 degrees at 6:48 a.m..
For almost nine hours, Farmington’s temperature was 30 degrees or lower, he said. Temperatures hitting 30 or lower for four or more hours is considered a freeze, Pike said.
Saddleback Events and Promotion Director Patricia Carrier said the workers came down from the mountain Tuesday and Wednesday and said there had been some snow, but she couldn’t see any Wednesday afternoon.
Opening day for skiing at Saddleback is Saturday, Dec. 18, she said.
“The snow-making system is all set to go,” she said. “We’re just waiting for the lodge to be ready.”
The lodge is undergoing renovations.
It looked nice’
“We got enough to coat the trees from about 3,000 feet and up. Our snow makers who were working up there said it was snowing pretty hard for a while yesterday morning,” Sugarloaf/USA Communications Manager Bill Swain said via e-mail. “The ground is still warm enough that the snow wouldn’t stick to the ground, just the trees. Even still, it looked nice.”
The snow guns were turned on Wednesday for the first time of this season, he said.
Sugarloaf snow makers made snow on the Landing trail for about eight hours for a full-pressure test of newly installed lines, Swain said.
Although Wednesday’s snow making was only a test, he said, just the sight of snow was embraced by eager skiers and riders.
Sugarloaf plans to open Friday, Nov. 19.
Norm Haggan, Division 7 engineer with the Maine Department of Transportation in Dixfield, said the plow trucks and his crews are raring to go.
“We’re all ready,” he said. “We’re anxiously awaiting. We’re used to having snow in the first couple weeks of October in Rangeley.”
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