The biggest ice storm to hit Maine and New Hampshire since the Great Ice Storm of '98 knocked out power to as many as 400,000 individuals and left 70% (66,000 people) of York County without power.

Governor Baldacci declared a state of emergency before the storm arrived, which enabled out of state power crews to be deployed. During an interview with WCSH, Steve Harding or the York County EMA reported that hundreds of side roads in York County and other major routes like 111, 109, 202, 114, and 35 were closed due to downed trees or wires. In the Shapleigh area, EMS was forced to take people to New Hampshire hospitals due to road closures. Regional dispatches were reported to have problems keeping their phones and dispatch centers powered. Emergency warming shelters were set up across southern Maine for people without power or heat. It took eight days for all affected customers to be back on-line. We were without power for two days even here in South Portland.

This event was the result of very strong cold air damming and a large amount of QPF (amount of precipitation) in a short period. In all large ice storms, you must have a source of cold air which is capable of overcoming the latent energy released when the super-cooled water finally freezes. In this case, the source of the cold was a relatively deep cold flow from the north. We eventually went over to rain in South Portland as temperatures rose, but there were many areas across the interior (especially New Hampshire) which got close to an inch of ice accretion. We ended up with just over ½ inch of ice here.

Strangely, this event was surrounded by days of record warmth- one before and two after! On the 10th of December the temperature reached 58°, a new record. On both the 15th and 16th of December it warmed to 56°! A very wild stretch of weather and hopefully not an indication of a future mode of precipitation with a warming Earth.