New2Maine.com

We were out of town for the lighting of the Portland Christmas Tree, but I managed to snap a picture of it lit up at night while we were downtown a few weeks ago. This was before all of the snow that we’ve gotten, so you can actually see the sidewalk. I’ll have to go back and see what it looks like with snow around it.

By the way, if you’re interested in seeing the tree yourself, it’s on Monument Square on Congress Street. And this was taken with my cell phone, so I apologize for the poor quality.

I haven’t been able to find any official snowfall totals, but by my rough estimate, we got just under a foot yesterday. The wind caused some drifting and the snow plows caused even more, so it’s tough to tell exactly. I do know that it took me the better part of an hour (and a snow shovel that now needs replacing) to chop through the plow’s pile and clear the sidewalk in front of our house so that I could walk the dog. I’ll try to get a picture of some undisturbed snow and a yard stick, but I think we’re well over 18″ on the ground right now. If this is late fall, actual winter should be interesting…

UPDATE: User SteveG, apparently a more intrepid web surfer than I, writes in with the following list of snow accumulation totals:

• Portland 8″
• Gorham 7.7″
• Bridgton 6.7″
• Auburn 5.5″
• Lewiston 7″
• Augusta 8″
• Bethel 8″
• Saco 8″
• Kennebunk 8″
• York 10.5″
• Westport Island 7″
• N. Sebago 8″
• Gray 7″
• Mexico 14.9″
• Sugarloaf 15.5″
• Sunday River 11″

The ski areas got a good coating. I think I need to get my skis waxed and ready to go.

Gingerbread men (and Bean boots) at L.L. Bean’s flagship store, originally uploaded by new2maine.

One of the great Maine traditions in the winter is to go Christmas shopping at Freeport’s L.L. Bean flagship store. The store is open 24 x 7, 365 days a year, but during the Christmas shopping season, you probably don’t want to be anywhere near the place during daylight hours. Even at 8:30 PM on a frigid Saturday night, She and I had to park in the back parking lot and walk a few minutes to get to the store.

I tried to snap some pictures outside, but they didn’t come out very well. If I go up to Freeport again, I’ll bring my tripod so the exposure times can be long enough to actually capture some detail. I included a few of the not so terrible outdoor pics on the photoset. The indoor ones, like this gingerbread cookie display, and the gingerbread L.L. Bean store complex came out much better. If you get a chance to head up to Freeport during the Christmas shopping season, and you have the patience to shop in a crowd, L.L. Bean is an experience not to be missed.

With 12 days left until Christmas, we’ve just topped 12″ of snowfall for the month in Portland. And the weather forecasters are saying that we’re going to get “a real storm” on Sunday. With 8″ last Monday, close to half a foot today, and God knows how much this weekend (weather.com says it could be another foot, though the Maine shore might get rain), I think it’s safe to conclude that it’s going to be a white Christmas in Maine.

WGME 13’s Skycam shows Portland covered with the white stuff.

Lightning Up Maine II, originally uploaded by StarrGazr.

Another cool photo from Cape Neddick found whilst browsing Flickr (and no, this was not taken recently).