The unseasonably cold weather that settled on central Maine late Sunday will likely stick around for another day before warming slightly Wednesday, then even more so Thursday.
The weather has also brought considerable wind through the region, knocking down trees and causing power outages in Kennebec County towns. Power was largely restored to central Maine by mid-morning Monday after downed trees and wires caused more than 16,000 Central Maine Power customers to lose power Sunday afternoon and evening.
At noontime Monday, the temperatures in Augusta and Waterville were 24 and 22 degrees respectively, according to Eric Sinsabaugh, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. The Augusta temperature is 20 degrees below the average high temperature for this date on record, Sinsabaugh said. With a heavy cloud cover, those numbers are not likely to climb much higher Monday, he predicted.
Other parts of Maine are seeing similarly dramatic lows with the high temperature in Portland on track to be the coldest on record for April 4, Sinsabaugh said. Temperatures are expected to reach only 28 in Portland, three degrees colder than April 4, 1954, when the high was 31.
Determining that record is not possible in the Waterville and Augusta areas because the National Weather Service does not collect the same data here, Sinsabaugh said.
It will be a few days before Kennebec County sees higher temperatures on par with those late last week. The National Weather Service is predicting similarly cold weather Tuesday, then rising temperatures through Wednesday and Thursday. The state is also expected to see heavy rain Thursday.
Downed trees have been reported in towns from Albion to Winslow in northern Kennebec County, Somerset County from Fairfield in the south up through Cambridge and southern Franklin County. Most of the damage was late afternoon and into the early evening Sunday, as wind of 20-25 mph, with gusts up to 40 mph were reported, according to the National Weather Service.
CMP reported 883 outages statewide by 6:06 p.m. Monday with the majority in Cumberland County. At 6 p.m. Sunday, more than 16,000 customers were without electricity.
At its height Sunday night, the utility reported that 3,525 customers were without power in Lincoln County, 5,924 were without power in Kennebec County, 4,588 were without power in Somerset County, and 2,041 were without power in Waldo County.
By 8:30 p.m. Sunday, the number of customers without power in those counties had dropped to approximately 4,200.
Charles Eichacker — 621-5642
Twitter: @ceichacker
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