21,000 Granite Staters Without Power Due To Blustery Winds

CONCORD, NH — Leap Day 2024 started off with a bang in New Hampshire as dropping temperatures and strong wind, with gusts as high as 50 mph, knocked out power to tens of thousands.

Outages were being reported by Eversource, the state’s largest utility, as well as Unitil and the New Hampshire Electric Co-Op.

Eversource reported more than 10,000 customers without power, including significant outages in Barnstead, Loudon, Hooksett, and New Boston, as well as smaller outages in Rye, Nashua, Hollis, Milford, North Hampton, Concord, Weare, Brookline, Dunbarton, Amherst, and Portsmouth. The company does not report restoration times.

At just after 12:30 a.m., more than 1,600 Concord and Epsom residents lost power. More minor outages, about 350, were reported in Unitil communities on the Seacoast, including Atkinson, Hampton, Hampton Falls, Kensington, and Kingston, were reported by the company.

Restoration times on the Seacoast range from 3 to 7 a.m., while the company reported restoration times for Concord and Epsom between 3 to 5 a.m.

The NHEC reported nearly 9,000 customers without power, including major outages in Sandown, Raymond, Barnstead, Chester, Sunapee, and other Upper Valley and Lakes Region communities. The company does not report restoration times.

Liberty Utilities was not reporting any outages.

Scattered trees, limbs, and wires were down all around the capital region, according to scanner chatter, with fire dispatch reporting alarm activations, too.

The National Weather Service said a wind advisory was in effect through 3 p.m. on Thursday.

The New Hampshire Patch network will update this post later this morning.

The latest weather conditions can be found on the front page of every Patch.com site in the United States, including the 14 New Hampshire Patch news and community websites covering Amherst, Bedford, Concord, Exeter, Hampton, Londonderry, Manchester, Merrimack, Milford, Nashua, North Hampton, Portsmouth, Salem, Windham, and Across NH. Local weather reports for New Hampshire are posted on Sundays and Thursdays. Alerts are published when needed.

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