We have a very cold start to Friday with feel-like temperatures around -10 degrees with little relief in sight.

There is a cold weather advisory in effect until 11 a.m.

Temperatures will remain low throughout the day , with highs ranging from 10-20 degrees.

Overnight will remain calm and clear with brutally low 0-15 degree temperatures.

The weekend starts out a bit warmer, with highs near 20 degrees.

The coastal storm that was nearby continues to push out to the ocean and misses us.

In 2021, the Maine Department of Transportation partnered with federal and state wildlife agencies to install a wide culvert designed to help turtles, including the endangered Blanding’s turtle, safely cross a notoriously deadly section of State Route 236 in Eliot. 

In the years since, tens of thousands of people have driven over this wildlife crossing, most of them unaware it is even there. And dozens of species, both shelled and non-shelled, have taken advantage of the underpass. 

During a presentation Tuesday, biologists at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife reported that the turtle tunnel — the first of its kind in Maine — is working. 

“There’s been a substantial reduction in turtle mortalities,” Greg LeClair, a municipal planning biologist at the state agency, told a small crowd gathered at the Eliot Town Office. “Follow-up surveys have shown much fewer turtles being crushed on that section of road.” 

Last summer, the Maine Department of Transportation deployed special game cameras equipped with a light beam that can detect the movement of small, slow-moving critters. Shortly after 9 a.m. on June 27, the camera trap snapped a photo of a Blanding’s turtle lumbering through the tunnel, safe from buzzing traffic along what one former state biologist called “a highway of death” for shelled reptiles. 

The 8-foot-wide, 6-foot-tall culvert connects wetlands on both sides of the busy state highway, including a nearly 100-acre section of conservation land managed by Great Works Regional Land Trust.

The wildlife underpass and roadside fencing, meant to steer wildlife toward the tunnel, cost approximately $400,000 to install, with Maine DOT contributing a large chunk of the funds to mitigate wetland disturbance from construction of the high-speed toll plaza on the Maine Turnpike in York. 

While the Eliot tunnel was designed with Blanding’s turtles in mind, Maine DOT has documented a slew of other creatures passing through, according to Justin Sweitzer, the agency’s environmental coordinator for southern Maine. Over a period of nearly five months, the cameras snapped more than 270 photos of wildlife in the tunnel, ranging from snapping turtles and salamanders to muskrats and mink.

Not one Blanding’s turtle has been found dead on the road since the crossing was installed, according to the department. A small number of snapping turtles and painted turtles have been killed.

Blanding’s turtles are rare in Maine, found only in York County and the southern part of Cumberland County. The state listed the species as threatened in 1986 and upgraded it to endangered in 1997. Habitat loss and road mortality are among the biggest threats to these reptiles.

Unlike some other turtle species, Blanding’s move around a lot in search of food, often traveling to six wetlands per year, according to Kevin Ryan, a reptile and amphibian biologist at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. 

“The closeness of the roads and the houses and the wetlands down in southern Maine means that throughout the course of its life, a turtle is going to come into contact with human infrastructure quite a bit,” Ryan said at Tuesday’s event. 

The life cycle of Blanding’s turtles makes recovery efforts particularly challenging. The yellow-throated reptiles can live to be over 70 years old, with females not reaching sexual maturity until 14 to 20 years of age and often taking decades to produce an offspring that ultimately reaches adulthood. 

“Losing one or two turtles actually matters,” Ryan said. “They’re not like a game species, something like a deer, rabbit, turkey, something like that, where a significant portion of the population can get harvested from year to year and then have it bounce right back.” 

Peter Egelston, chair of the Eliot Conservation Commission, told The Maine Monitor ahead of the event that there is a growing awareness in the community about the importance of preserving wildlife habitat. He noted that Eliot residents adopted an updated comprehensive plan in June that emphasizes natural resource protection and building new trails, among other things. 

“Communities are dealing with what seems like on the surface competing interests,” Egelston said. “There is a huge demand for housing. And yet there is also a huge desire to preserve open space. It’s one of the things that I think has caused a lot of communities to put a different shape to their approach to housing and zoning and so on, because in some ways what we really want to do is have the best of both worlds.” 

It’s not every day that a third-grader earns media credentials for the biggest game in American sports, but for one Massachusetts student, the Super Bowl is about to become his next big story.

Nine-year-old Louis Divito, of Westminster, was named Panini America’s 2026 Super Bowl Kid Reporter, landing an all-access pass to Super Bowl LX.

Selected from more than 187,000 applicants nationwide, Divito will spend Super Bowl week covering the NFL’s biggest stage not just as a fan, but as a working reporter.

As part of Panini America’s annual sweepstakes, Divito will interview NFL players from the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks and take part in opening night festivities alongside former Super Bowl-winning quarterback Trent Dilfer. He’ll also attend exclusive Panini events, open trading card packs with current and former players, and soak in game day experience at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8.

A lifelong New England fan, the trip carries extra meaning — he’ll be accompanied by his father, John Divito, also a Patriots diehard. Between school, sports, and a fast-growing trading card collection, his enthusiasm for the game has already set him apart. Now, he’s ready to bring that energy to the national stage — one question at a time.

We caught up with Louis ahead of his Super Bowl correspondent debut.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Boston.com: Louis, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Louis: My name is Louis. I’m nine years old. I play football, I play baseball, I play basketball. I play hockey, swim, and ski. I like doing Legos. And I have three sisters and two parents.

What do you like about being a Patriots fan?

I like that the team’s in the Super Bowl. I also like that the Patriots are a really good team, and it’s my home team. I also like that I get to go to the Super Bowl. They’re really good. And I love blue and red … and white, but white’s not my favorite.

What was your reaction when you found out that you were going to the Super Bowl?

Screaming and not much sleep. Thinking and thinking and questions. A hundred billion questions — like, a lot of questions.

You’re going to get to interview the players at the Super Bowl. How are you feeling about that?

I’m nervous for the part where I have to ask questions. But I’m also really excited to go to the Super Bowl, and California, and spend time with my dad, and the hot weather, and meeting my favorite players. 

Who are you most excited to talk to?

I have five players in mind: Drake Maye, Stefon Diggs, Will Campbell, Christian Gonzalez, and Mack Hollins.

How do you feel about getting to talk to the Seahawks?

I feel good, I think it’s just fun to talk to any NFL player, even if I’m not rooting for them. But I’d definitely choose talking to the Patriots over the Seahawks.

What do the Patriots have to do to win?

Play really good defense. And pass the ball and catch the ball and not slip and fall on the ground, and score touch downs, and really tackle people hard. And we want to sack the [Seahawks] quarterback really hard, and don’t let him score anything.

If the Patriots do win the Super Bowl, how will you celebrate?

We’ll go to the hotel and celebrate and do so much stuff. We’ll go to dinner … and open the car windows, and we’ll dance, probably play karaoke on TV in our room. And we’ll go to the beach and scream at the sea lions.

Annie Jonas is a Community writer at Boston.com. She was previously a local editor at Patch and a freelancer at the Financial Times.