MADAWASKA, Maine — Residents of northern Maine awoke to a dusting of snow Thursday morning with temperatures just below freezing.
The National Weather Service Caribou office forecast scattered snow showers, mainly before noon in parts of Aroostook County with a high Thursday of just around 33 degrees in the St. John Valley. Temperatures are expected to rise into the 40s during the day the rest of the week.
The NWS also issued a wind advisory in effect through 6 p.m. Thursday with sustained winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour and gusts up to 45 miles per hour.
Those strong winds already were causing power outages late Thursday morning. At noon, Emera Maine reported 1,381 customers had lost electricity service scattered across its territory in Aroostook, Penobscot, Washington and Hancock counties.
Slightly over 400 of those outages were in the Madawaska and Caribou areas in The County. Power went out at the Woodland Consolidated School at about 11 a.m., so administrators sent students home at 12:30 p.m.
While utility crews repaired some lines during the day, others went down. By 4 p.m., Emera was still reporting some 1,060 outages, though the numbers in Aroostook had been reduced to 72, with the brunt in the Blaine, Bridgewater area.
The majority of Emera customers still without power by mid afternoon were in Hancock County.
