High Wind — Interior York, Maine

2022-12-23 · Interior York, Maine

Event narrative

Southwest Maine experienced two periods of strong to damaging winds on the 23rd. One during the morning hours generally had wind gusts in the 40 to 55 mph range. A second during the afternoon and evening featured wind gusts around 60 mph. Numerous trees and wires were reported down in the area, and power outages approached 30 percent of customers across the county.

Wider weather episode

Beginning on December 22nd a powerful storm was developing over the Ohio River Valley. On December 23rd the center of the storm was deepening rapidly (974mb) as it lifted through the eastern Great Lakes. While the center tracked into southern Ontario, high pressure retreated into the Canadian Maritimes creating a strong pressure gradient across the region. Strong southerly winds developed as a result, with speeds in excess of 80 knots at around 2,000 feet. Several rounds of strong to damaging wind gusts occurred, which brought widespread power outages to the region with upwards to 240,000 customers without power.

Precipitation moved into southern Maine during the late evening hours of December 22, and moved across the remainder of the state into the early morning of December 23. Snow quickly changed over to rain on the night of December 22nd, with a changeover later in the mountains towards daybreak on December 23rd. The precipitation continued through the evening hours of December 23, then gradually ended from south to north early morning, December 24. Overland flooding was prevalent for areas where rainfall exceeded 2 inches. The impacts varied from standing water in fields to complete road washouts. The runoff exceeded capacity for most feeder creeks and rivers.

The rapidly deepening area of low pressure over the Great Lakes region combined with very high astronomical tides to produce the fourth highest storm tide ever in Portland. In addition, storm to hurricane force east to southeasterly winds occurred along the coast with nearshore waves of 15 to 20 feet coinciding during peak storm surge. Significant to major coastal damage occurred during the morning high tide cycle across the beaches and Mid-Coast of Maine.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1065182. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.