By John Schwing

WESTPORT — More than 100 local households, and thousands more across the state, are waking on a frigid Christmas Eve with no power.

After a day-long winter storm buffeted the region with rain, strong winds and flooding, a strong cold front was ushered in overnight — temperatures plunged from a high in the mid-50s Friday to below 10 degrees early Saturday.

In the storm’s aftermath, the Saturday forecast predicts extremely cold conditions will prevail all day, according to the National Weather Service.

The freezing weather, with a daytime high temperature of only 20 degrees and wind-chill values of minus-10 to -15 degrees, also has created hazardous icing conditions, the weather service warns in a “Special Weather Statement.”

At the height of the onslaught, nearly 800 Eversource customers in Westport lost power Friday, with 125 still without service as of 5 a.m. Saturday.

The primary cause of outages in Westport and elsewhere — nearly 40,000 Eversource customers around the state had no power early Saturday — was “the fierce winds accompanying the storm that whipped through the region, bringing trees and branches down onto power lines,” Eversource said in a statement.

The power company, which reported it has “hundreds of crews on the ground working,” also is warning that “with outages being so widespread it will take time” to repair all the damage.

On Sunday, Christmas Day, skies again should be clear and very cold, the NWS says. The daytime high will reach the high-20s, with a nighttime low in the mid-teens.

Things warm up a bit Monday, with readings just reaching the freezing mark of 32 degrees.

Emergency information

A list of emergency contact information for Westport, assembled by the local Emergency Management Team, can be found here.

Power outages can be reported online at Eversource.com or by calling 800-286-2000. Customers who signed up for the power company’s two-way texting feature can send a text to report an outage and receive outage updates as they happen.

John Schwing, the Westport Journal consulting editor, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.