Kat Mitchell walks to work Tuesday in Auburn. “It’s very festive for Christmas,” Mitchell said about the snow falling on Christmas Eve. “Another day in Maine,” she said. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Parts of Maine were reporting a snowy Christmas on Tuesday.

As of 11:30 a.m., the National Weather Service said 6 inches of snow had fallen in Rangeley, 5 inches in Madrid, 1 inch in Freeport, 3 inches in Lewiston and as many as 8 inches in nearby Jackson, New Hampshire.

Portland received only a dusting of snow.

Jon Palmer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, said forecasters expected precipitation to slow down in inland areas through Tuesday morning but said snowfall would continue up and down the coast with 1-3 inches expected from Portland through the Midcoast.

Palmer said Christmas Day would be “a pretty nice day” in Maine.

He said the day would start off mostly clear with some clouds building in the middle of the day all around the state. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 30s.

The forecast is expected to stay until Sunday, when 1 to 2 inches of rain will likely fall around the state. Although, he said, there could still be snow in the White Mountains.

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POLAND, Maine (WABI) – Poland Spring has donated tens of thousands of dollars for Mainers in need of heating assistance.

$40,000 will go to several communities across the state including Lincoln, Howland, Passadumkeag, and Enfield.

The Kingfield bottling facility and the Farmington Elks Lodge also donated 100 gifts in support of Franklin County’s Operation Santa Claus.

Poland Spring has raised more than $14 million for various statewide causes in the past two decades.

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After a years-long delay, a state ban on some products containing harmful “forever products” may move forward.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection recently proposed rules that would gradually outlaw the sale of consumer goods with intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

The family of chemicals has been used in a wide array of industries for decades. But there are recent heightened concerns about the chemicals’ harm to human health and the environment.

Under the rules nine categories of products including cleaners, cosmetics, cookware, textiles and ski wax would be banned in 2026.

That prohibition would extend to most goods in 2032. Cooling, heating, air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment would be banned eight years later.

Kerri Farris, manager of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Safer Chemicals Program, said companies should have plenty of time to find substitutions and average consumers likely won’t notice a change.

“We’re hopefully that the market has already started shifting to alternatives to PFAS and removing it from their products,” Farris said.

Maine passed a law that made producers report goods with PFAS and ban some items in 2021. But rulemaking to implement the law stalled as lawmakers amended its provisions.

The proposed rule is also in line with similar state bans including in Minnesota and California, Farris said.

“The Legislature has given us the directive to implement these sales prohibitions with the hope that we can remove these sources of PFAS,” Farris added.

Under the proposal, producers can get a five-year exemption to the rules if they can prove that PFAS is essential to their product and there is no alternative.

The suggested rules will be subject to a public hearing in January. The DEP hopes to enact a final rule next spring.

This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.