A strong storm expected to stretch overnight Sunday into Monday morning could bring as much as 3 inches of rain to the state, along with powerful wind gusts up to 60 mph along parts of the coast.
Meteorologist Michael Clair at the National Weather Service in Gray said he expects the storm will gain wind strength through the night on Sunday, peaking sometime toward late Monday morning.
“The strongest winds look to be toward the coastline across the Midcoast, and then also toward Down East Maine,” Clair said, noting that gusts along the coast east of Portland could reach up to 50-60 mph. The southern coast of the state may see wind gusts up to 40 mph. “As of right now, the worst of it is staying offshore from the southern coast.
“For a lot of interior areas, once you get west of I-95 or so, the winds don’t look to be a major factor at this point,” Clair added.
“We’re expecting some scattered power outages throughout the Midcoast, but I can’t really give you concrete numbers,” Clair said.
Central Maine Power spokesperson Jon Breed said the storm “will have pretty significant impacts along the coast,” though he declined to estimate how many power outages it might cause. He said CMP is bringing in about 350 supplemental line crews and 300 vegetation management crews to assist their regular teams during the storm.
“What is unique about this storm is that the winds are coming almost directly from the south, and Maine’s trees are typically used to winds coming from the northeast. So they are more vulnerable to strong southerly winds because of how they grow,” Breed said. “It does have us concerned that tree damage could be significant, particularly along the coast, and we’re making plans to respond to any damage that might occur.”
Most of the state will see between 2 and 3 inches of rain during the storm, Clair said. Behind the storm system, the general region could also experience some 30-40 mph winds. The state’s northern mountain areas could see a little snowfall on the backside of the storm as well.
“It’s certainly a significant system with widespread impacts both from the wind and the rain, but nothing we haven’t seen before, either,” Clair said.
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