On May 11, 1945, much of Maine and three other states were covered with a blanket of snow, an unwelcome spring surprise.

Across the region, snowfall totals tell the tale: Portland, 10 inches; Waterville, 8 inches; Gardiner, 10 inches; Farmington, 9 inches; Madison, 7.2 inches; the east outlet of Moosehead Lake, 7.8 inches; and Jackman, 13.6 inches.

Tom Hawley, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service office in Gray, said he found no record for Augusta because it’s likely the city had no cooperative weather observers reporting data at that time.

“As I recall,” he said, “we had a gentleman, one of our old-timers, who lives in Livermore Falls who remembers that storm. There were a lot of power outages. ”

The storm still holds the record for the latest snowfall in Maine.

“It’s rare to get snow that late, especially for towns like Augusta and Portland,” Hawley said, and even for western Maine towns like Jackman and Eustis, which also received 13.6 inches of snow.

While there in no snowfall in the forecast for this week, conditions are expected to remain cool and damp, including Mother’s Day.

Chris Legrow, National Weather Service meteorologist, said rain is expected over the weekend across central Maine.

“We have precipitation we expect to start moving in during the day on Saturday, with the most concentrated and heavy rain falling Saturday night into Sunday,” he said, with perhaps an inch or more rain expected.

Legrow said he doesn’t anticipate any flooding, but that depends on how much rain actually falls.

“At this time of year, the pattern tends to get very stuck and it’s hard to move things along,” he said. “We have been on the bad side of that and it’s hard to push through.”

Since May 1, central Maine has received 1.68 inches of rain, about a half-inch more than average. Since March 1, he said, the region has received 9.15 inches, just under an inch more than what’s considered normal.

Because of that, the drought that affected the region has been alleviated, he said. The latest drought update on May 2 showed the only areas still affected by drought are Downeast Maine and far southern New Hampshire.

“There are some signs this pattern will start breaking down,” he said. “Certainly by the last third of the month, we should be able to salvage something of the spring.”

Jessica Lowell — 621-5632

jlowell@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @JLowellKJ