A relatively uncommon late-season nor'easter will bring steady rain and wind gusts of up to 45 miles an hour to Maine, starting Thursday night into Friday.
Steady rain will arrive later on Thursday. Rain will eventually change to snow in the mountains.
Meteorologist Derek Schroeter with the National Weather Service in Gray said a block in the jet stream over Greenland is responsible for recent slow-moving rain events and clouds that linger for days.
"With this blocking pattern, these systems take two or three days to move from the Ohio Valley into New England, and they may take another day or two to exit out into the Atlantic," he said.
High winds will die down through Friday morning. Saturday and Sunday may see chances of rain, but things will dry out and warm up Sunday into Monday. The jet stream pattern brining rain and clouds is expected to return late next week, Schroeter said.
Though the Weather Service is issuing gale warnings for the next few days, Schroeter said the chances of flooding are relatively low.
"The system is going to produce some storm surge, but the storm surge is going to occur closer to low tide," he said.
Nor'easters in late May are relatively rare, Schroeter said, though a storm brought more than 30 inches of snow to the summit of Mount of Washington in 2017. This time, the summit is expected to receive just more than seven inches.
