A series of strong thunderstorms — and two confirmed tornadoes — brought down trees, flooded and blocked roads, displaced campers and knocked out power Saturday in the western reaches of Maine, according to the National Weather Service.
While Maine is no stranger to summer storms, having two twisters touch down less than four hours apart was an extraordinary weather event.
“It’s fairly unusual to have two tornadoes in the same day. For Maine to have two tornadoes in one day, I’d say, is probably darned rare. I’d say it is quite unusual,” meteorologist Tom Hawley of the weather service’s Gray office said early Sunday afternoon.
“We usually average one or two a year but not two in a day,” Hawley said.
On Saturday, staffers at the weather service in Gray posted on its Twitter account that they had issued seven tornado warnings in New Hampshire and Maine — the most ever issued by their office in a single day.
Bridgton — where one of the tornadoes touched down — took the brunt of Saturday’s storm damage, according to Hawley.
“There was serious damage there to the west of Long Lake. A lot of houses damaged or destroyed, trailers turned over and destroyed. A lot of damage,” Hawley said.
“We have somebody up there looking at it. He has not made a determination yet on what strength it was but he is verifying that there was a tornado there,” the meteorologist said.
“He thinks it actually touched down farther to the west, between Highland Lake and Moose Pond. Then it traveled to the east and northeast,” he said.
Hawley said the worst of the damage at Long Lake was found on Obelazy Lane, which runs down from Pond Road to Plummer Cove.
That tornado was determined to have been an EF1 in strength on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, according to the weather service’s public information statement posted on the Gray office’s Facebook page late Sunday afternoon.
The second tornado formed shortly before 2:30 p.m. on the western shore of Sebago Lake, Hawley said.
“It was an EF0, the weakest tornado,” Hawley said.
“It did cause some damage right near the shore before it headed out over the water,” he said. “There’s no indication that it came back on the other side of the lake. It lifted up and dissipated before it came onto land on the other side of the lake.”
The Sebago Lake tornado became a waterspout when it passed over the lake, and was recorded in photos and video that several weather watchers posted to social media. Before it headed out over the water, it brought down some trees, including one that fell onto a house, Hawley said. He did not yet know the extent of the damage to the house.
The local storm report for Saturday’s weather events showed that dozens of other problems occurred throughout Oxford, Cumberland and Franklin counties. These included downed trees that blocked roadways and caused power outages, road closures and washouts due to flash flooding and a report of a person trapped inside a flooded home.
Central Maine Power reported on its website Saturday evening that nearly 4,000 customers were without power, the vast majority of whom were in Cumberland and Oxford counties.
By 6 p.m. on Sunday, however, only 167 accounts remained to be restored. The bulk of those, 111, were in Oxford County.
No injuries were reported in connection with the storms.
This story appears through a media sharing agreement with Bangor Daily News.