The Monday storm that ripped through the northern part of the area around Indian Pond in St. Albans was a macroburst, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather service sent a damage survey team to the area Wednesday morning to confirm what type of storm caused extensive damage in St. Albans, in central Somerset County, just one area where the storm knocked down trees and power lines.

St. Albans was one of the towns hit hardest by the storm, which generated reports of golf ball-size hail and a tornado watch. The wind from the macroburst reached up to 90 mph, Tom Hawley, a meteorologist with the weather service in Gray, said Wednesday.

The damage covered an area about 4 miles wide and 3 miles in length, Hawley said. Any width of damage greater than 2.5 miles is considered a macroburst, as opposed to a microburst. Since a tornado is caused by a rotational wind rather than straight line, it would leave fallen trees in different directions, according to Hawley.

Straight line wind comes straight down from a thunderstorm in a macroburst, hits the ground and spreads out in a straight line. The strong wind will continue with the thunderstorm, which in this case headed east, he said.

On Wednesday, crews continued to clear trees from lines and roads and get power on for the few remaining customers who didn’t have it. Central Maine Power crews were out in force, replacing utility poles that had snapped in the storm and fixing power lines.

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“It doesn’t get much worse than this,” CMP lineman Aaron Cole said of the devastation.

Some who experienced Monday’s macroburst thought it was a tornado. A tornado hit the same area of the town two years ago, on July 15, 2014.

Hiram Weymouth, a St. Albans selectman, said he lost 30 trees around his house on Dinsmore Drive, which is a private road with two houses, he said. Fallen trees ripped his satellite dish off the roof and also damaged some metal trim on the roof. Another fallen tree hit his larger garage and made a 12-inch hole through the wall of his roof. Some of the roof’s panels will have to be replaced, too, Weymouth said.

Most of the damage happened in the forest to the south of his house and the road, though, Weymouth said.

“We were lucky with that,” he said.

St. Albans Town Manager Rhonda Stark said Wednesday there are still trees and debris in the roads and the cleanup will take a while. She said there is still debris in town from the storm two years ago.

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The storm initially left more than 4,500 Central Maine Power customers without power, the majority of whom were in Somerset County. May of those customers were still off-line Tuesday.

As of Wednesday morning, 114 were without power in Somerset County and 20 in Franklin County.

Madeline St. Amour — 861-9239

mstamour@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @madelinestamour


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