By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Call it par for the course of a northern Maine winter, but the past few weeks have been filled with snowfall alerts, driving condition advisories and wind chill warnings.
Though some are undoubtedly tempted to breeze over another cautionary advisory about the cold or snow, keeping an eye on the sky is an important part of staying warm and safe this winter, as Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service Office in Caribou Noelle Runyan explained.
“As Mainers know, you do have to prepare for hazardous weather in order to ride it out as well as they do,” Runyan said. “And that means taking some precautionary steps when you know the weather is going to be hazardous: if it’s cold, making sure you have enough heating fuel or pellets or wood — if you’re traveling, maybe keep some extra warm clothes in the car just in case.”
Cold is something Caribou’s had in spades since the beginning of the month, Runyan said that except for January 1, which had a low temperature of 1 degree, every single day has had a low temperature of below zero.
“Low temperatures this time of the year are generally in single digits above zero,” she explained. “Now, because you have temperatures that are sub zero, any amount of wind will really drop that wind chill down to significant levels to 20 below or colder.”
For instance, a mere five mile an hour breeze comes with a wind chill of -11 degrees when it’s zero degrees outside, according to the NOAA’s wind chill chart. That same breeze has a -16 wind chill when the temperature dips down to -5 degrees.
To help people stay on top of the weather, the Caribou National Weather Service Office has their own Facebook page that’s updated frequently with information about current and upcoming storms, dipping temperatures and even nice weather.
“For much of next week, we’re looking at much milder temperatures — but we know here in northern Maine that that’s probably not going to last, so definitely get out and enjoy the next week and a half or so,” Runyan said, mentioning that temperatures over the weekend could very well get above freezing. “Temperatures in the upper 30s are even possible for Caribou,” she added.
Found under “US National Weather Service Caribou” on Facebook, people can view the page for information about significant weather events, interesting weather stories and even snowfall reports from around the area.
“We really appreciate when people give us reports about what they’re seeing, especially in the winter with snow depths, how thick a layer of ice might be or even when they see freezing rain,” Runyan said.
