Heavy snow and strong wind gusts will be Saturday night guests

Warm, rainy and windy to start the week … cold, snowy and windy to end it.

STORM TIMELINE

Saturday morning starts off dry, but cloudy. Sunrise will bring overcast skies.

Through the morning, the coastal low to our south keeps strengthening.

Rain showers start up on Saturday morning. Some mixing is possible in the foothills. NEWS CENTER Maine

Rain starts up in southwestern Maine around 7 a.m. The entire coastline will see rain before 10 a.m.

The rain might even push far enough inland to bring some showers in the foothills before the change to snow.

As the storm strengthens, colder air gets wrapped in. NEWS CENTER Maine

By the early afternoon, colder air starts to get pulled into the storm and there will be a switch to snow from northwest to southeast.

The first flakes will fall near Route 2 in western Maine in the late morning. By 1 p.m., snow will be falling from interior York county all the way to Rangeley.

Lewiston, Augusta and Bangor will see snow showers around this time, too. Rain continues Down East and along the Interstate 95 corridor into the later afternoon.

The transition to snow will be well under way in the evening. NEWS CENTER Maine

After nightfall, colder air becomes even more plentiful. The transition from rain to snow will be quick at the coastline. Wiscasset to Portland and south will likely see snow starting around 7 p.m.

Rain will continue Down East, as this is the warm side of the storm.

The heaviest snow will happen Saturday evening and into Saturday night. NEWS CENTER Maine

Some of the heaviest snow with this storm could fall overnight Saturday into Sunday. Snowfall rates could easily be over an inch an hour, especially inland.

If you’re into winter weather, thundersnow is a big possibility Saturday night as well.

Snow clears from west to east on Sunday. NEWS CENTER Maine

The snow wraps up from west to east Sunday morning. Expect clearing conditions in eastern Maine in the evening.

NEWS CENTER Maine

STORM IMPACTS & SNOW TOTALS

It looks like this will be the first big snow event for Maine this season.

NEWS CENTER Maine

Totals inland will easily be in the double-digits. There’s a significant portion of Maine in the 10-inch-to-15-inch range, with the possibility for a couple of higher totals to get mixed in under heavy banding. Western areas of New Hampshire will also get in on these higher snow totals.

Portland will likely be on the higher side of 2 to 5 inches; Lewiston-Auburn is looking at the higher side of 5 to 10 inches; Augusta and Bangor are in the 5-to-10-inch range; Caribou is looking at 10 to 15 inches.

The only spots that end up with just a slushy coating will be coastal areas Down East. Snow totals are not as impressive, since the rain takes so long to switch to snow.

NEWS CENTER Maine

Not only could heavy, wet snow cause problems, but some isolated to scattered outages will be possible.

Current gusts are forecast to be between 40 and 50 mph. With the wind coming out of the north, those wind speeds generally do not cause many problems.

The strongest gusts will occur overnight Saturday into Sunday. They do ramp up through the evening Saturday, though, which will add to the threat of whiteout conditions.

NEWS CENTER Maine

The addition of snow is the wild card here, but it still does not look like a huge outage event.

Travel is going to be difficult, particularly Saturday evening and Saturday night. Watch for rapidly changing conditions. Whiteout conditions will also be possible.

With all the rain that fell Down East on Monday and Tuesday, a couple of rivers or streams may get close to flood stage. Widespread issues are unlikely. Coastal flooding is not anticipated.

The start of next week remains colder and blustery. Flakes aren’t back in the forecast in the foreseeable future.

For more forecast info, follow me on Twitter. I’ll have updates all weekend long.