Severe thunderstorms and high winds took down trees and wires in southern Maine on Monday evening, and a lightning strike started a fire in Cumberland County.

The National Weather Service in Gray received more than a dozen reports of trees and wires down across New Hampshire and Maine, and some people saw small hail.

Central Maine Power reported 1,257 customers without power in its eight-county service area at 6:20 a.m. Tuesday morning, including 537 in York County, 213 in Cumberland County and 261 in Kennebec County.

Scattered outages were reported i n Lewiston on Tuesday morning.

In York County, the bulk of the outages were in Buxton, with 318. In Cumberland County, almost all of the outages – 194 – were in Portland.

A dispatcher at the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said a lightning strike started a fire at a detached garage on Greenwood Acres Road in Baldwin at 7:15 p.m. More details were not immediately available.

One severe storm moved through Portland at 6:15 p.m., and another passed through Kennebunkport shortly before 8 p.m.

The afternoon had been hot and humid with temperatures in the 80s and 90s. The weather had issued a heat advisory and an air quality alert for parts of Maine on Monday.

“The heat and humidity was the energy needed to really make these storms severe with high winds,” meteorologist Derek Schroeter said.

The weather service predicted the storms would die down Monday evening. The forecast for Tuesday calls for high temperatures in the low 80s.

Tuesday “will feel much drier and nicer,” Schroeter said.

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