High winds this week blow in cold weather for the weekend

The Lakes Region is in for a cold weekend — temperatures could reach 8 degrees Sunday.

A so-called “polar vortex” is set to bring cold temperatures and moderate winds to the Lakes Region and New Hampshire more broadly through the weekend, weather forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine, said Friday morning.

The first bout of harsh winds hit the area Thursday night, with the most significant speeds clocked in Gilford and Center Harbor at 56 and 50 miles per hour sustained, respectively.

Despite rough conditions, Laconia’s public infrastructure came out of the wind event unscathed. Public Works Director Wes Anderson said Friday there were no reports of serious damage. A portion of a tree limb fell on Addison Street, and two residents removed it.

“We have not heard of anything that really impacted the city streets,” he said. 

But the winds were surely howling, sending garbage cans rolling and blowing garbage and foliage around residential areas of the city.

While the extreme cold has yet to hit the Lakes Region, the high winds hit it hard. There were over 1,000 Lakes Region Eversource customers who lost power on Thursday night, Kaitlyn Woods, manager of external communications, said Friday afternoon.

“Our crews restored power to approximately 1,100 of our customers in the Lakes Region who lost power as a result of strong winds,” Woods said. 

Those outages were scattered throughout towns in the area, and power was restored to all of the customers affected by tree damage caused by the strong gusts of wind by Friday afternoon. Eversource staff aren’t expecting outages over the weekend due to the cold, but will have crews ready to respond around the clock if outages do occur. 

Nickki Becker, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said the strongest winds were observed late in the evening on Thursday, and contributed to up-slope snowfall in the areas at higher elevations.

Potentially more hazardous in the coming days, however, will be severe cold temperatures throughout the region. Becker said temperatures are expected to drop through the weekend. 

A “polar vortex” occurs when cold air and low pressure near poles — the north pole as is relevant to the United States — push the jetstream and cold air south, much further than usual. This time around, it’s expected to push as far south as Florida. These circumstances occur fairly regularly during the winter months and are not necessarily a major cause for concern. 

“The wind’s going to be down and then we’ll have some high pressure build,” Becker said, noting temperatures would likely reach the upper negatives high in the mountains. 

“All it means is that it’s a pressure-type anomaly that brings lower pressure,” she said. “We won’t have windy conditions but we’ll still have wind.”

Wind chill could contribute to hazardous conditions, she said. If there’s sustained wind 5 miles an hour or more, it will contribute to dropping temperatures. 

“It’s just really preparing to be out in the cold,” she said. “It’s hazardous if you’re unprepared.” 

Staff at Lakes Region Mental Health Center are staged to help members of the community stay safe through freezing temperatures. Their warming shelter, located in Laconia, will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. this weekend. 

LRMHC endeavors to time the opening of their warming shelter to periods when Isaiah 61 Cafe is closed. It was open Friday evening as well. They’re open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every weekend.

Anyone interested in learning more about accessing the warming shelter should call program lead Nicole Fitts at 603-581-4807. Check the digital sign in the window of the building facing Main Street in downtown Laconia, or LRMHC's social media pages, for updates and other community notices.