Record-breaking temperature, first flurries fall three days apart

By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
    CARIBOU — Not that anyone can speak for Mother Nature, but it would appear that she’s pretty conflicted when it comes to October’s weather.
    On one hand, the first flurries of the season fell on Oct. 6.
    On the other hand, record-breaking temperatures were recorded on Oct. 9, raising the bar for the highest temperature ever recorded in October since data first started being recorded back in the 1930s.
    Trace amounts of snow fell on Oct. 6, according to National Weather Service data recorded at the Caribou office.
    But any allusions of sledding, shoveling and sweaters were melted away over the weekend with Sunday’s 82-degree high.
    It was the first time that a temperature over 80 degrees had ever been recorded in October — historically speaking, the mercury peaked at 79 degrees on multiple instances, but never broke the big eight-zero.
    According to Noelle Runyan, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Caribou, the previous high temperature recorded for Oct. 9 was set in 1970 at 77 degrees.