No foolin’: Snow hits New England

MONTPELIER, Vt. — It was April Fools’ Day, but it was no joke: People across northern New England woke up to a foot of heavy, wet snow on parts of the region Saturday.

The storm caused power outages and numerous highway accidents. By midafternoon the number of electric customers without power in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine had dropped to about 2,200 from overnight totals in the tens of thousands. The winter storm warning for Vermont and New Hampshire expired but remained in place for parts of Maine until 8 p.m.

“This is Mother Nature’s idea of an April Fools’ joke,” said meteorologist Eric Schwibs of the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. But he said that while it’s disheartening to see snow so late in the season, it’s not unusual. Winter had already brought more snow than normal to northern New England. Portland, Maine, recorded 84.4 inches of snow, 2 feet above normal for the city; Concord, N.H., had 73.8 inches, about 15 inches above normal.

Bradford, N.H., about 20 miles west of Concord, reported 18 inches Saturday.

Weather-related crashes were reported on the Maine Turnpike and, in New Hampshire, a loaded tractor-trailer rolled over on Interstate 95 in Hampton, blocking three lanes. The driver had non-life-threatening injuries.

In Vermont, the state’s largest electric utility, Green Mountain Power, had more than 21,000 customers back online after they lost power overnight. About 1,700 remained without service.

Just after noon, New Hampshire’s Unitil utility reported a handful of customers were without power, down from about 7,000 earlier Saturday.