Maine Island Records an Incredible 95 MPH Wind Gust
As they helped prepare Maine for the latest winter storm, meteorologists warned us that the most dangerous part of Tuesday and Wednesday's storm would be the strong winds.
While it was windy across much of the state, the highest winds were recorded on Maine’s coast. The sustained winds were strong, but the gusts were enough to take a person’s breath away. In fact, several of the recorded gusts reached nearly 100 MPH.
According to WCSH 6, Isle au Haut, an island in Penobscot Bay that is known for being part of Acadia National Park, recorded a gust of 95 MPH.
Isle au Haut was not the only place to get hit with strong gusts. The article goes on to explain that another island, Matinicus Rock, saw “hurricane force winds”. Additionally, Matinicus Rock recorded a gust of 92 MPH.
Is that a new Maine wind gust record?
Not quite. So, what was the highest wind gust ever recorded in Maine? Reportedly, a gust of 100 MPH was recorded off the coast of Rockland during Hurricane Ginny in 1963.
While central and northern Maine avoided most of the flooding, the same was not the case for the coast. The winds whipped up the ocean, causing flooding in many coastal communities. We are hearing about flooding and flood damage from Scarborough to Rockland.
We are also hearing that portions of Bangor saw significant flooding.
While it was nothing like what we saw during December’s “Grinch” storm, the latest storm did cause thousands of customers to lose power. Between Versant and Central Maine Power, about 30,000 customers lost power because of the storm.
On the plus side, the storm has been a big help for some of our winter tourism industries. A significant amount of snow to our state’s larger ski resorts. The WCSH 6 article reports that Sugarloaf picked up over a foot of snow. Sunday River’s website was reporting that they picked up about 15” of new snow.
There is no word on how the storm affected the snowmobile trails.
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