Two sets of thunderstorms rolled through the River Valley area Tuesday less than five hours apart.

Drivers had to contend with heavy rains, street flooding, dangerous lightning, gusting winds, fog and reduced visibility.

Starting at 11:15 a.m., a line of thunderstorms stretching from New Hampshire to western Maine drenched Rumford streets, despite zipping along at 20 mph.

Torrential downpours in the first wave created instant pavement ponds when the sudden overload of water swamped storm drains from Mexico to Rumford.

Lightning flashed and thunder noisily rumbled nearly instantaneously, eliciting excited comments from emergency personnel inside the Med-Care Ambulance station on Main Street in Mexico.

Some drivers on Main Street, which is also Route 2, pulled to the side of the road to wait out the deluge.

At almost the same instant that Rumford and Mexico were hit by the first set of storms, reports of lightning strikes 20 miles away in Bethel sent firefighters out into the deluge, looking for fires in trees near Crescent Park Elementary School.

Fire Chief Jim Young said that although no fires were found, one bolt had raced down a tree, along a fence and struck a house.

A Bethel official said 1.1 inches fell on the town in 25 minutes.

A second line of storms hit the area again at 3:50 p.m., this time with gusting winds mixed with heavy rain and lightning.

The storms prompted the National Weather Service in Gray to issue special weather statements throughout the day for most of Maine that warned of gusty wind, dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning – with up to four strikes a minute – and half-inch hail.

A forecaster said heat and leftover moisture sparked the fast-moving storms. He said some places in Maine would see an inch or two of rain in the first line of storms.