Winds knock out power after days of high heat

By Kate O’Neill Augusto, Globe Correspondent

Winds gusting to 68 miles an hour caused about 14,000 National Grid customers in Central Massachusetts to lose power overnight, and 12,000 remain without it, weather and utility company officials said today.

Fallen trees and branches from the wind caused most of the outages, with many of the power losses occurring in Spencer, Auburn, and East and West Brookfield, said David Graves, a spokesman for National Grid. Customers in Sheffield and Great Barrington also were hit hard.

Graves said that most customers can expect to have power back by tonight, but some will have to wait until tomorrow morning.

Though winds gusted to 40 miles an hour in Greater Boston overnight, there were only scattered outages, said Caroline Allen, a spokeswoman for NStar. There were outages in the Framingham area, but only 200 customers remained without power early today.

Some of the wind in the Worcester area was accompanied by less than an inch of rain, said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton.

Flash storms overnight followed several days of high heat, when temperatures soared into the 90s. There should be calmer weather today in Massachusetts, with winds at 10 miles an hour and temperatures in the upper 70s in Greater Boston and winds at 10 to 11 miles an hour and temperatures in the 80s in the Worcester area, Dunham said.

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