The rural areas were bad. By 5 p.m. today, state police dispatchers and county sheriff's departments were starting to get more calls of cars off the road on Interstate 95, Route 2 and U.S. Route 201 between Fairfield and points north of Skowhegan. Hayes at the National Weather Service said the culprit this time was a shallow pocket of cold air at the ground, with warmer air aloft pouring in from the south and overriding the cold temperatures. He predicted another system with more of the same Wednesday afternoon and into Thursday. When the warmer rain falls into the cold, shallow air pools at ground level, the precipitation dow not turn to snow, he said, but to ice.
Meteorologists agree the ice storm was 'big,' but disagree on what caused it.
But El Ni o - absolutely not.'' Fleming, an author and current chairman of the historical committee of the American Meteorological Association, said the timing of the ice storm, which first hit Jan. 5, was just right for the record books. Fleming said of the set-up of the ice storm. When the warm air slammed into a Canadian high pressure ridge of cold air, the warmth ''rode over'' the cold air at the surface. He said the ice storm of the century had to have three ingredients to finally do the extensive damage that it did to Maine and other parts of the Northeast. A subtropical jet stream bending or ''crimping'' as it funneled warm air to Maine from the American Southwest.