BANGOR, Maine — Wind gusts that arrived in Maine with a cold front Wednesday morning are being blamed for sporadic outages that knocked out power to more than 6,000 people.
Emera Maine had restored power to more than 5,000 customers by 5 p.m. in an area that spread from Glenburn north to Millinocket. The utility only had 49 people listed out on its website at 5:30 p.m., with a small cluster in Garland in Penobscot County, and another in eastern Washington County. Central Maine Power reported 1,445 outages scattered across 10 counties in its territory, with 1,008 of those in Brunswick.
The cold front brought with it snow, lower temperatures and wind gusts, according to meteorologist Tom Hawley of the National Weather Service in Gray.
The temperatures fell during the day, bringing with it snow showers in some areas as the squall moved east.
As of 4:30 p.m., a trace of snow was reported in Bangor, said Corey Bogel of the National Weather Service in Gray.
Snow was still falling in parts of Washington County at 4:30, an area that experienced the highest snow totals in the state with two inches reported a few miles east of Machias, Bogel said. The snowfall was expected to end later that evening.
An inch was reported in Corinna and 1.2 inches was reported south of Ashland in Aroostook County, Bogel said. Meteorologists had earlier forecast three to four inches of snow in areas of the state.
“It’s going to be much colder with high temps from mid- to upper 20s,” Hawley said earlier in the day. Paired with “pretty gusty” winds out of the north and west, people should expect wind chills, he added.
“It will feel like mid-winter, not spring,” he said, suggesting people wear a coat.
The weather will clear up on Thursday but remain chilly, with highs in the low 20s up north and the low-to-mid 30s down south, Bogel said. A mix of snow and rain is expected on Friday throughout most of the state, though snow totals are not expected to climb over 2 inches, he said.