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Storm Brings Power Outages, Tree Damage to New England

Updates may be added to this article


Saturday's storm brought both heavy snowfall and a band of serious ice accretion. Freezing rain fell heavily from a band extending from southern New Hampshire through Maine's coastal counties. This freezing rain was able to accumulate rapidly. This, in combination with several inches of wet, heavy snow and gusty post-storm winds, has led to widespread tree and power line damage across southern New Hampshire and Maine's coastal plain.


Storm Prediction Center update Saturday night:


This has led to a major power outage across portions of the region. Around 8am Sunday, outage numbers appeared to peak around 284,000 with just over 200,000 in Maine alone. As of 10am, outage numbers have inched down to around 276,300 with Maine just under 200,000.


These outages added up very quickly as freezing rain poured down. Throughout Saturday outages hovered around a few thousand region-wide. As late as 7pm, reported outages remained under 5,000. By 11pm, reported outages ballooned to nearly 200,000. From 8-10pm, reports came fast about snapping trees and exploding transformers around Maine.




Nearly half of all customers in Cumberland and Lincoln counties in Maine lost power. Sagadahoc county saw nearly 70% of total customers in the dark early Sunday morning. Outage numbers will be slow to come down throughout the day today. This will likely be a multi-day outage for some.


Scenes of icing and damage in Maine and New Hampshire:

Credits (in order): Tom Acona; Andy Austin; @chilipepper411 (X); Josh Barret; Central Maine Power; Eversource



The storm also brought, by far, the heaviest snow totals of the season for New England. Areas that saw the most snow saw a lighter snow, which helped keep power outage numbers down across the northern tier of the region.


A widespread 18-24 inches of snow fell across a swath of northern New England, with some areas reporting over 30 inches. West Windsor, Vermont currently stands at the top, with 33.1 inches reported. Elevation did not play as much of a role in snow totals as usual for a spring storm. Interstate 93 was forced to close for a time on Saturday morning. Over 100 accidents were reported in both New Hampshire and Maine.



Photos (in order): Interstate 93 in Thornton, NH (Campton-Thornton Fire Rescue); Mad River Valley, VT (Mad River Valley TV); Caribou, ME (James Sinko); Maine snowfall (Cobalt Azurean)


While heavy snow and freezing fell across northern New England, a soaking rain fell across southern New England. As expected, a widespread 1-3 inches fell across the area. Very few areas in southern New England saw less than an inch of rain.


This did lead to some flooding issues. The Pawtuxet and Wood Rivers in Rhode Island and the Housatonic River in Connecticut reached flood stage. The Pawtuxet River is expected to reach moderate flood stage. Some street flooding also occurred around southern New England.



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