Winds of more than 60 mph knocked out power throughout North Idaho and Eastern Washington on Monday.

Avista reported more than 300 outages affecting more than 20,000 customers in its service areas in Idaho and Washington on Monday evening “primarily due to heavy wind causing branches and trees to come into contact with power lines.”

Outages began to occur on Avista’s system just after 3 p.m., and winds were expected to continue until about 10 p.m., a press release said.

Avista crews were scheduled to “work around the clock as quickly and safely as possible until all customers are restored.”

According to Avista’s outage map, the Coeur d’Alene area had 62 outages affecting 6,852 customers at 7:15 p.m. as winds picked up.

The Rathdrum area had 23 outages affecting 5,515 customers; Spirit Lake had seven outages affecting 42 customers.

Power went out for a time on East Sherman Avenue early Monday evening.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative reported it had 4,562 customers affected by outages about 7:30 on Monday night.

"Crews are responding to multiple outages across our service territory as the winds continue to pick up," said a statement on its website.

The north area of Kootenai County and south Bonner County were the hardest hit.

Coeur d’Alene climatologist Cliff Harris said he recorded wind gusts of up to 59 mph at his Player Drive weather station, while the Coeur d’Alene Airport had gusts of up to 61 mph. Gusts of up to 72 mph were recorded in Athol, Harris said.

He said winds of up to 57 mph were recorded Sunday, and added it was unusual to have two windstorms back to back.

He said the windstorm occurred six years to the date that one blasted North Idaho with even stronger winds — 66 mph in Coeur d’Alene — and caused such a mess that power was out for more than week in some areas.

According to a press release, Avista was focused on assessing the extent of the damage to the electric system and restoring power Monday night.

“Given this ongoing assessment, estimated restoration times are currently unknown and may take 24 hours or more in some cases,” the release said.

“While estimated restoration times are unknown, customers should be prepared for prolonged outages and seek resources as needed.”

The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office was receiving increased calls to the 911 Center on Monday, but urged residents to call their power company about outages.

"If you have a tree down, again do not call 911, unless someone is injured or trapped or there is an immediate threat of injury," KCSO posted on its Facebook page. "The 911 lines will need to remain open for those life and death incidents."

It’s also unseasonably warm, and hit 59 degrees Monday. But colder conditions and snow could be coming later this week, Harris said.