MAINE PUBLIC • March 30, 2026
It's mid-March, and even if most of the snow has melted in southern and coastal Maine, on Saddleback Mountain it's very much still winter. It's one of six sites set up this winter, and one of the few places in New England capturing snow depth on mountains higher than 2,500 feet. Despite decades of snow monitoring records across the region, very little is known about the snowpack at higher mountain elevations, said Julia Daly, a geology professor at University of Maine Farmington. That's left a critical information gap at a time when a warming climate is affecting winter recreation, cold-adapted ecosystems and flooding risks. Monitoring mountain snow is helpful for water management, flood predictions and the winter recreation industry. It can also help better identify "climate refugia" in Maine's mountains — areas that may be buffered to the worst effects of soaring global temperatures driven by burning fossil fuels.