Southern Maine’s coastline will play host to a unique concoction of weather events Saturday, forecasters say, all while temperatures decrease rapidly across the state.

“We have an arctic cold front that’s approaching, while an area of low pressure passes well offshore,” Derek Schroeter, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Gray, explained in a Friday interview. “There’s going to be an area of convergence near the coast.”

That convergence along New England’s coastline will bring snow. In Maine, that’s expected to start overnight Friday and into Saturday afternoon, Schroeter said, with the heaviest snowfall coming between sunrise and midmorning Saturday.

Schroeter said the snow in Maine will likely concentrate along the York County coast, ranging from 2 inches in the Saco and Old Orchard Beach area to as much as 6 inches in Kittery.

But it’ll snow elsewhere, too. The Portland area can expect 1 to 2 inches, with the totals decreasing the farther north one goes. Brunswick was projected to be on the fringes of the precipitation as of Friday afternoon, with less than half an inch expected there.

“It could be very localized, heavy snow for one town, but the next town over might not see much,” Schroeter said.

Areas further inland may also notice some snowflakes, though Schroeter did not expect much in the way of accumulation away from the coast.

A BLAST OF COLD

What the rest of Maine can expect is frigid temperatures — with a nasty wind chill to boot.

The weather service in Gray has issued a cold weather advisory that’s in effect from 6 p.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday across Cumberland, Franklin, Somerset, Oxford and York counties.

“As that arctic front crosses, temperatures will drop pretty quickly Saturday evening,” Schroeter said.

The coastline will stay warmest, likely hovering between 0 and 5 degrees, Schroeter said. Moving inland toward Augusta and Lewiston, the weather service expects subzero temperatures, eventually reaching 10 below in the northern highlands.

Then there’s the wind.

Schroeter said it will feel closer to 10 to 15 degrees below zero along the coast, with windchills at about minus 20 in central Maine and even minus 25 westward in the Rangeley and Jackman areas.

The weather service’s office in Caribou also issued weather advisories for Saturday night and Sunday morning. That includes wind chills around 30 below in Piscataquis County and high winds and frigid temperatures over the Atlantic, as well as the central highlands and northern woodlands.

It’s expected to feel even colder at high elevations in northern Oxford, Franklin and Somerset counties. There, where the wind is strongest, the weather service is projecting wind chills to approach bone-chilling levels near minus 40 degrees.