Warm December shatters Maine records

PORTLAND – December’s weather is going down in the record books.

Golf courses opened and ski resorts closed because of warm temperatures that set new monthly records in Portland in the south and Caribou in the north.

The average temperature for the month in Portland was 34.8 degrees, or more than 8 degrees warmer than the usual average of 26.5 degrees. In Caribou, the average daily temperature was 26.5 degrees, 11.7 degrees above average.

Every day of the month in Portland had above-average temperatures, said Bob Marine, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Gray.

“Besides it being the warmest December, it was the first time ever every day of the month was above freezing,” he said. “That’s incredible.”

The weather was great for golfers who could tee off at several courses that stayed open well into December.

It also created problems at ski areas. Many resorts delayed their openings, and others opened and then shut down because it was too warm to make snow.

Peter Geiger, editor of the “Farmers’ Almanac” in Lewiston, said the warm weather caught everybody off guard. He said the publication, which has been giving weather forecasts for 185 years, correctly predicted when precipitation would come – only the wrong form of precipitation.

The almanac predicted the area’s first snow would be on Nov. 28 and 29, Geiger said, but instead it “rained buckets.” It forecast more snow for Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, when it was rainy and foggy.

“Every time I’ve said snow, it’s rained,” Geiger said. “So it’s messed up our weather predictions.”

December was not only warm, but also dry in Maine.

In Portland, there was only 5 inches of snow, far below the normal 17 inches.

Caribou had 12.1 inches of snow for the month, 29 inches less than usual and the second-driest December on record. The city had 11 inches in December in 1996.

Geiger said his almanac’s predictions have pretty much been holding up for other parts of the country, and that it will stick by its predictions for the rest of the winter.

For the record, the almanac is projecting a “very active winter weather pattern, especially in the Northeast. For there, we predict a few heavy snowstorms and even a near-blizzard [in the second week of February].”

Geiger said people understand that predicting the weather is a tricky business. They are also more forgiving when it rains during calls for snow – rather than vice versa.

“Most people still forgive me because they prefer not to shovel snow,” he said.