Thousands of Maine households lost power Tuesday morning as strong, gusty winds made their way across the state.

A bulk of the outages — which peaked near 15,000 — were reported in Cumberland, Piscataquis and Somerset counties, according to Central Maine Power. Most of the outages had been resolved by the afternoon.

Much of southern, central and western Maine were under a National Weather Service wind advisory Tuesday morning. The weather service warned that wind gusts could reach up to 50 mph, which could blow down trees and tree branches and affect driving conditions.

The weather service reported wind speeds between 35 and 50 mph in many areas across Maine throughout Tuesday, with gusts up to 65 mph reported in Rangeley around 4 a.m.

Source: Central Maine Power

While Cumberland County had more than 5,000 power outages early Tuesday, the majority were resolved by lunchtime, according to CMP. By 3 p.m., a few hundred outages lingered across Lincoln, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset and York counties.

Versant Power, which covers northern and eastern Maine, reported about 1,900 outages as of 3 p.m., largely concentrated in a major outage in the Piscataquis County town of Brownville and smaller outages in coastal areas, including Brooklin, Deer Isle and Mount Desert Island.

CMP and Versant Power announced Monday that both companies had extra crews on hand in anticipation that the high winds would result in outages, though CMP noted that its crews cannot go up in bucket trucks when wind gusts exceed 30 mph.

The high winds and outages followed a widespread flood watch Monday, as heavy rainfall and melting snow were expected to cause river flooding and runoff through Tuesday.

Meteorologists at the time warned that the rain would soften the thawing ground and make it easier for trees to fall when the gusty winds blew in that evening.