Tens of thousands of people were hit by power outages in the northeast of the United States on Sunday due to a heavy snowstorm, according to the PowerOutage.us web portal.

Iran PressAmerica: Around 66,600 subscribers were disconnected from the power grid in the US state of Maine, with 8,500 and 6,200 people in New Hampshire and Vermont, the portal said.

US media reported that the winter storm dropped up to 19 inches (50 centimeters) of snow on the region of New England and some areas in the state of New York.

All three major power companies in Maine that are tracked by PowerOutage.us are experiencing significant outages. Central Maine Power reports over 45,000 customers without power, more than 6% of their total customers. Around the same percentage of customers of Versant Power, 6.5% are experiencing an outage. Meanwhile, the smaller Eastern Maine Power Cooperative has roughly 10.7% of its 12,878 currently in the dark.

Local media reports indicate that some customers have been out for over 24 hours.

"It has been a real challenge to access some parts of the system," said Central Maine Power President Joe Purington in a statement. "And, because we need to see and understand the extent of damage before we can estimate how long it will take to repair, we haven’t yet been able to provide estimated times for all customers for when repairs will be made, and power will be restored."

Temperatures in Maine are expected to drop to 23 F (-5 C) overnight on Sunday.

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