Seacoast NH, York County power outages reduced. What will next storm bring?: Live updates
Meteorologists are predicting the region will be hit with yet another winter storm affecting Seacoast New Hampshire and southern Maine this week. The forecasts come as utility companies have restored power to tens of thousands of customers in New Hampshire, where Dover was hit hard, and Maine, where York County took the worst of the most recent storm. Some remained without power Wednesday morning, with the most outages in South Berwick and Wells, Maine.
Back-to-back snowstorms within three days left the greater Seacoast, from Seabrook to Hampton, Rye and Portsmouth and Exeter areas, and Strafford County communities like Dover, Rochester and Somersworth with piles of snow, icy roads, car accidents and power outages. There were downed trees, limbs and wires, especially in Maine towns like York, Wells, Eliot and South Berwick. Starting Wednesday evening, a third winter storm in less than the span of a week could bring several more inches of snow to inland communities across Maine and New Hampshire, as well as rain and strong wind gusts to towns and cities along the coastline.
How much snow in next storm? Rochester, NH and Sanford, Maine areas may see the most
Jon Palmer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, noted the storm could bring varying snowfall totals.
“It’s a bit of an interesting situation with the snowfall,” he said. “The immediate coast, we’re looking at around an inch of snow for the next event, but it’s a very tight gradient, so if you go any further inland, you start getting a lot more snow.”
Snow is expected to begin to fall in the Seacoast on Wednesday night, though past midnight the precipitation is expected to change to rain, and roughly all of the Seacoast is expected to be having rainfall by 7 a.m. Thursday, according to Palmer. Temperatures in the Seacoast on Thursday could hit the low-40s, though wind gusts in the area and throughout mid-coast Maine may top out at 45 mph at different points during the day.
Snowfall in areas off the water will pick up later Wednesday, and the National Weather Service expects Rochester to receive an additional 5-8 inches of snow, while Sanford, Maine, may see 6-10 inches.
“Our heaviest snow totals will really be in northern Strafford County, where we expect to see 8-12 inches of snow, as well as far interior York County,” Palmer stated.
Power restored to tens of thousands in York County with more work to do
More than 30,000 Central Maine Power customers in York County, which saw the worst of the Monday storm's impact, were initially without power. That number was reduce to a little more than 4,200 as of Wednesday morning, hours before the next storm was expected to begin.
New Hampshire outage map: View power outages near you
Maine outage map: View power outages near you
CMP President Joe Purington said as many as 217 line crews were on the job.
The town of Wells had the most outages with more than 7,000 on Tuesday. That number was reduced to just over 1,000 by Wednesday morning. South Berwick was left with the most outages as of Wednesday morning with more than 1,200 from a high of more than 3,000. Kennebunk had gone from more than 3,000 to fewer than 300 outages. Similarly large numbers of customers had power restored in towns across the county, including York, Eliot and Arundel.
Dover, NH sees power mostly restored
Dover power outages in New Hampshire were reduced to a little more than 200 on Wednesday morning from a high of more than 7,000 about 24 hours earlier, according to Eversource. Dover, the hardest hit community in the Seacoast New Hampshire region in Monday's storm in terms of power outages. also reopened roads across the city after closures due to downed trees and power lines.
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A notice from Dover officials on Tuesday morning stated that some storm cleanup may not occur until springtime “due to the volume of damage.”
“Due to the significant amount of storm debris, including downed trees, limbs and brush, cleanup from the storm is expected to continue for some time,” the city’s notice reads.
More:Dover sees thousands of power outages and schools remain closed
Unitil, which serves a number of southeastern New Hampshire communities, reported it had restored power to virtually all customers by Wednesday morning.
What were Monday's snowfall totals?
The National Weather Service reported snowfall totals on Monday evening following the day’s precipitation.
In Strafford County, 11.8 inches of snow accumulated in Rochester, compared to 10 inches in Northwood, 7 inches in Dover and 2 inches in Durham and 4 inches at Portsmouth International Airport at Pease.
“Along the coast, especially in York County, we saw a significant amount of freezing rain along the coastline where icing on the trees made things difficult and took down power that way, but before the storm started, we had a lot of snow on the trees anyways in that area,” Palmer noted.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seacoast NH, Maine face power outages, new winter storm: Live updates
