Mainers with inflatable holiday decorations in their yards may want to ensure they’re tied down tightly: A storm that’s forecast to arrive late Thursday is expected to bring high winds, as well as rain and warmer temperatures.
The National Weather Service is forecasting the wind to begin picking up Thursday night, with the brunt of it coming Friday, when gusts will be between 40 and 50 mph along Maine’s southern coastline and up to 60 mph in the Midcoast.
Along with the wind, high temperatures in the 50s are expected in much of Maine on Friday, with temperatures warmest along the coast.
“There’s a pretty strong storm that’s tracking to our west, and it pulls up a lot of warm, moist air,” Michael Clair, a forecaster at the weather service’s office in Gray, said Wednesday.
Clair said it will be “the warmest we’ve been in a while” on Friday.
The last time temperatures eclipsed 50 degrees in the Portland area was Nov. 10, according to weather service data. Since then, most of Maine has been repeatedly blanketed in snow and faced frigid temperatures that broke multiple decades-old records in Portland and Augusta.
Rain is also expected Thursday night into Friday, with Clair saying the weather service expects roughly an inch in most areas but closer to 2 inches in the mountains.
The weather service late Wednesday issued a wind advisory for parts of Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, Kennebec, Oxford, Sagadahoc, Somerset, Waldo and York counties from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, warning of wind gusts as high as 50 mph.
“This time of year, there are a lot of people who have inflatables and stuff out for the holidays,” Clair said. “It’d be good to prepare those for the next couple of days.”
A spokesperson for Central Maine Power said the utility company will have extra workers on hand at its service centers across the state but noted that crews are prohibited from raising bucket truck arms when wind speeds exceed 30 mph.
Colder temperatures will return over the weekend as the storm moves out, though coastal areas could see a touch more rain Sunday morning.
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