PORTLAND (AP) – Memorial Day weekend is arriving with near record-high gas prices, but good weather is expected to draw plenty of holiday travelers to Maine.

Traffic at the Maine Turnpike’s southernmost toll plaza in York is expected to increase 3 percent from last year, turnpike officials said.

Citing a forecast prepared by the University of Maine System Center for Tourism Research, the Maine Turnpike Authority said nearly 120,000 vehicles are expected to enter Maine and pass northbound through the York toll plaza between Friday and Monday.

On Friday alone, 44,000 vehicles were expected to pass northbound through the plaza.

Friday is usually the busiest day of the long weekend.

For the four-day period Friday through Monday, turnpike officials were projecting traffic counts to set a record for the entire 109-mile highway from York to Augusta. The record was set last year, when 664,000 vehicles traveled the turnpike over the Memorial Day weekend.

The National Weather Service was predicting good weather for most of the holiday weekend.

On Friday, forecasters were expecting mostly sunny skies with temperatures ranging from the low 80s to the low to mid-90s south to north. Lower temperatures with partly sunny skies were expected on Saturday and Sunday, and rain and thunderstorms were predicted for Monday.

Maine State Police announced they were putting extra patrols on the road to be on the lookout for drunk, aggressive and speeding drivers, and to enforce the state’s seat belt and child safety laws.

“Memorial Day weekend sets the tone for highway safety enforcement for the rest of the summer, and the state police goal is to make it a safe one,” said Col. Patrick Fleming, chief of the state police.

Highway fatalities this year are down from 2006, Fleming said.

So far this year, 53 people have been killed on Maine roads, down from 63 last year at this time. Three people were killed in motor vehicle accidents over Memorial Day