New London — High wind gusts and severe thunderstorms ripped through the state knocking out power to more than 41,000 customers across the state by late Monday afternoon.

The storm system that brought violent storms throughout the South on Sunday slammed into New England with heavy rain, damaging wind gusts and flash flooding. The storm, though, had subsided by the early evening and power was starting to be restored. 

In New London County, a coastal flood advisory was in effect until 6 p.m. and a high wind warning was in effect until 8 p.m., with wind speeds reaching 60 miles per hour. New London County was also expected to see rain until about 9 p.m., according to the weather service.

By 7 p.m., wind gusts were starting to settle down across the state, said Western Connecticut State University Meteorologist Gary Lessor, with the highest gusts hitting 61 mph in Bridgeport and 56 mph in Groton Monday. 

While much of the western parts of the state saw more than 4 inches of rain, most of southeastern Connecticut was spared from such rainfall, seeing less than 2 inches in most towns throughout the region, Lessor said.   

"The worst of the wind is over now," Lessor said. "And it will continue to diminish through the evening and the overnight hours."

Lessor said one more band of rain was still hovering over central Connecticut and would pass through the eastern part of the state by 9 p.m., "with a scattered shower or two after."

As of 5:17 p.m., Eversource reported around 41,704 power outages across the state affecting just over 3.2% of Eversource customers. By 7:40 p.m. that number had dropped to 33,525.

As of 7:30 p.m., many towns were still hard hit by the outages, with 551 in Waterford, 462 in Ledyard down from a high of 668 earlier in the day, 270 outages in Colchester and 305 in Old Lyme.

Montville's nearly 300 outages had been reduced to 43, while Griswold still had 129. Other towns had scattered outages.

Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross said Monday afternoon by phone that between high winds, treacherous storm conditions and the "essential steps we are taking in regards to the pandemic," it will "take some time" for crews to restore power to the more than 40,000 homes and businesses affected by the outages. Gross couldn't predict how long it would take for power to be restored throughout the state, especially as the storm is predicted to last well until this evening.

Gross said line and tree crews are following firm social distancing, hygiene and enhanced sanitation measures to safeguard their health and well-being, as well as that of co-workers and customers. He asked residents to be mindful of the difficult conditions repairmen are working in and that they stay clear of any downed wires and call 911 should they spot any on the roads.

As of 7 p.m., Norwich Public Utilities said its crew crews were still responding to a number of outages. Earlier in the afternoon, the utility company said 1,300 of its customers were out of service, but by 6:45 p.m., just 28 were remaining.

NPU said in a news release that crews have been using only one lineman per truck and "segregating our workforce to the greatest extent possible to maintain social distancing while working on restoration."