Weather

Tens of Thousands Without Power as Snow Blankets Northern New England

The weight of the snow has been a challenge for power companies, public safety officials, and transportation agencies

More wintry weather has rolled into parts of New England.

The storm moved in southern New England late Monday afternoon with rain. But parts of northern New England were blanketed with heavy snow.

Meteorologist James Brown from the National Weather Service said there's going to be a sharp cutoff between rain and snow. For example, Portland, Maine, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire got all rain on the coast. But northern Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont received some snow.

The powerful storm caused power outages to approximately 58,000 customers across the region.

It's not winter just yet, but it's been a snowy season. Brown says Portland is more than a foot of snow ahead of what's average for this time of the year.

State police in Maine are investigating whether snowy roads played a role in a fatal crash in Liberty on Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, in Vermont, a large tree fell onto lines in Duxbury—just one of around 1,400 individual outage incidents in more than 100 Vermont towns reported to the utility Green Mountain Power by noontime.

"This snow is so wet, it is just creating this cement-like layer on trees and power lines and they can only stand it for so long," GMP spokeswoman Kristin Kelly. "And they’re just coming down left and right."

Kelly said the power company brought in extra line crews from out-of-state to try to stay on top of the restoration work, noting the labor has been dangerous in some cases as line crews encounter falling trees.

On the roads, Vermont State Police tweeted a photo of a slide-off on Interstate 89, urging people to keep their speeds down if they have to travel, and to leave lots of room with other drivers.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation reminded folks to not crowd plows; asking for the distance and patience it’ll take for them to do their work.

Green Mountain Power said in remote parts of the state, it’s possible some ratepayers could be in the dark for a couple of days.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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