CARIBOU, Maine — November finished with below average temperatures and snowfall after a meteorological fall that produced some of the warmest temperatures on record in some parts of Maine, according to officials with the National Weather Service in Caribou.
Mark Bloomer, meteorologist with the NWS, said that temperatures across northern Maine as a whole averaged from 0.5 to 2 degrees below average last month.
Despite the November temperatures, however, Bloomer said that parts of the state experienced some of the warmest average temperatures on record for the three month fall season that is September through November.
Bangor recorded its fourth warmest average temperature at 52.4, which was 4.3 degrees above average for the three month period. The warmest average temperature in Bangor ever was 53.7 degrees, which was set in 1931, six years after record keeping began.
It was third warmest fall on record in Caribou at 47.7 degrees, which was 4.5 degrees above average. The warmest average temperature recorded since 1939 was 47.8 degrees in 2011.
Millinocket experienced its second warmest fall with an average temperature of 49.4 degree, which was 3.6 degrees above average. The warmest temperature occurred in 2011, when it the average was 50.1 degrees. Record keeping began in that community in 1948.
Houlton hit a record with its 48 degree average this fall, 4.3 degrees above normal. The previous warmest temperature of 47.9 degrees was recorded in 2011. Record keeping began there in 1907.
Bloomer said that in contrast, it was the coolest November across northern and eastern Maine since 2014, when the average temperature in Bangor was 33.5 degrees and the average temperature in Caribou was 29.6 degrees.
Only a trace of snow was observed at Bangor in November, according to the meteorologist. At Caribou a total of 3.9 inches of snow was observed, which tied with 1962 as the 12th least snowy November on record. The first measurable snow at Caribou did not occur until 0.8 inches was observed on Nov. 17.
Bloomer said that there was no particular reason that the state saw so little precipitation, it was “just part of a weather pattern that we found ourselves in.”
After observing its warmest October on record, officials from the National Weather Service in Gray said that Portland saw a high temperature of 70 degrees on Nov. 3 which was the warmest of the month. A cold front soon brought temperatures down and the first measurable snowfall of the month fell on Nov. 13, when 0.1 inches was observed.
The average temperature for the month was 38.4 degrees, which was 1.0 degrees below normal and the coldest November since 2013 at Portland. A total of 2.10 inches of precipitation fell, which was 2.83 below normal and the driest November since 2012.
