The professional weather forecasters called it “wintry precipitation.”

The rest of us had more colorful words for it, but it mostly came down to the same concept: “Yuck.”

Two inches of snow or less fell in most areas Tuesday, but it was followed by rain, sleet and ugly mixes of the two. The results were predictable: cars slipping off slushy roads, power outages and a lot of people grumbling about wet feet and windshields trapped under thick sheets of ice.

And those 2 inches of snow were incredibly heavy for anyone trying to shovel them.

“I was having flashbacks to the Ice Storm of 1998,” said Pamela Penney of Poland. “Had to have a few ‘old people tonics’ to calm me down. That is what my Dad called his drinks when I was a kid.”

“Ice,” said Lisanne Hayward of Sabattus, “is yucky.”

Who could blame a Mainer for hitting the bottle or resorting to child speak? It was downright unpleasant out there and the bad weather just wouldn’t let up.

By dinnertime, about 2,500 homes and businesses were without power, down from 5,000 earlier in the day. Almost all were in Cumberland County.

By the time the storm began to taper off, most areas had been soaked by a quarter-inch of rain while some towns, including Gray, had seen more than half an inch. And if that wasn’t enough to make for a miserable day, winds gusted up over 30 mph throughout the day.

There were vehicle crashes and cars off the road just about everywhere, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. In Lewiston, police Lt. Michael McGonagle said the fact that schools, government offices and some businesses were closed kept people off the road.

And let’s face it, it’s nearing the end of January.

“By this point in winter,” McGonagle said, “people know how to drive in snow again.”

Mostly, anyway. In Auburn, a driver lost control of his car and slid into a lamppost, snapping it half, on Main Street near the Citgo station.

Also in Auburn, a single-vehicle crash brought a pole down on Summer Street late Tuesday afternoon. No one was hurt, but police had to detour traffic around the crash site for several hours as Central Maine Power repaired the pole.

In Turner, a tractor-trailer slid into a ditch late Tuesday afternoon on Route 4, near Hannaford. Reports were that there were no injuries. 

By 8 p.m., the “wintry precipitation” was still falling. It was mostly rain, although occasionally it turned into sleet.

“I just wish it would stop!” Tammy Anne MacDonald of Auburn declared at about 6 p.m.

Folks who had labored to scrape their windshields on their way to work in the morning had to do it all over again at the end of the day.

“Is it spring yet?” wondered Michele Cox of South Paris.

In fact, it is not, yet there are signs of hope. In 55 days, it will be March 21, which is spring on the calendar, at least. In a mere 66 days, it will be April.

For some people, suffering from wet feet and raw knuckles from scraping windshields, that’s too long a wait. But there’s good news on a more immediate basis, too.

“A quieter and milder day on Wednesday,” reported the National Weather Service in Gray, “to assist in cleaning up after the snow and ice.”