More than 100,000 Mainers have been left without power on Monday as a wind storm lashed the state.
The National Weather Service has issued a high wind warning for much of coastal Maine as well as the interior, while a wind advisory has been issued for northern Maine. Those advisories remain in place until 1 a.m. Tuesday.
The storm will be gusty, with winds reaching speeds as high as 65 to 70 mph along the coast from Bar Harbor to Eastport. Those winds will be as strong inland, where Greater Bangor is expected to see gusts up to 55 to 60 mph, with similar gusts forecast all the way up to the crown of Maine, according to the weather service office in Caribou.
The storm is expected to drop a significant amount of rain across the state. Forecasters anticipate that up to 2 to 3 inches of rain will fall over Greater Bangor, while up to 1.5 to 2 inches are forecast from Bar Harbor to Eastport, according to the Caribou weather station reported.
To the north, the forecast calls for up to 1.5 to 2 inches around Houlton and 1 to 1.5 inches from Caribou to the St. John Valley.
Parts of southern and western Maine could see even more significant rainfall before the storm eventually leaves the area.
The area from Rangeley to Rumford could see as much as 4 inches of rain, prompting the weather service to issue a flash flood warning.
Meanwhile, Belfast is expected to see up to 2 to 3 inches of rain, Rockland 1.5 to 2 inches and Portland 1.5 to 2 inches, according to the weather service station in Gray.
All that rain is increasing the likelihood of widespread power outages given that the soil is already saturated with water from recent storms, Central Maine Power Co. spokesperson Jon Breed warned Sunday.
“Our service centers, tree crews and lineworkers will be prestaging across our service area overnight and will be prepared to respond to any storm damage that may occur,” Breed said.
As of 10:13 a.m., CMP was reporting 98,120 outages across its service area, with the bulk of them concentrated in Androscoggin, Cumberland and York counties. Meanwhile, Versant Power reported 3,552 outages.
