About 16,500 people were without power shortly before noon Saturday, according to outage maps maintained by New Hampshire utility companies.

The outages are being blamed on wind gusts exceeding 50 miles per hour.

Most of the outages were in southern portions of the state. Nashua, Hollis and Hampstead each reported downed poles, trees or wires in roads.

According to the Public Service of New Hampshire, about 4,700 customers in Nashua, 2,800 customers in Dover, 2,200 customers in Weare, 1,600 customers in Windham and thousands of others throughout southern New Hampshire lost power Saturday morning.