LEWISTON — Maine saw record temperatures Saturday, Sunday and Monday as the mercury climbed into the 80s and left what could be one last taste of summer.
Portland’s high temperature of 81 degrees Monday tied a record set in 1949.
The 85 degree high temperature on Sunday left the previous one, 79 degrees in 1943, in the dust. Saturday’s 81 degree temperature also tied the record set in 1947.
The weather made a perfect bookend for summer, and people around Lewiston and Auburn made the most of it on Columbus Day weekend, getting out to play with family and friends or finish up yard work before an autumn chill sets in.
Steve Hughes of Lewiston said he spent the holiday weekend playing soccer with his children, as he came up to the window at Main Street Dairy Treat on Monday afternoon.
He was just about the last customer of the year: shortly after 5 p.m., the ice cream shop was already cleaning up and putting out a sign thanking their customers for another summer of loyal ice cream consumption. Closing several hours early, the shop had to turn a stream of customers away because there was no ice cream left.
“We ran out of soft serve an hour ago,” manager Russell Angell said.
Not even the three cases of vanilla ice cream mix he had gotten his hands on that morning could keep his staff filling cones until the end of the day.
“We didn’t have to worry about having too much product left over” because of the warm weather, Angell said.
“It was the best closing day— closing weekend — that we’ve ever had,” he said.
“Some years it’s rainy, or cold, and you can’t give the stuff away,” he said. This year’s strong finish was “a nice little shot in the arm.”
Temperatures so warm so late in the season don’t serve as an accurate indicator of what is to come during this year’s autumn and winter, or even over the next month, National Weather Service meteorologist James Brown said Monday. The rest of the week should feel more like a typical October, with temperatures dropping into the 60s, he said.
“We just about always get unseasonable weather at some point during the year. It’s not unusual,” he said.
“But it does happen — that’s how you set records.”
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- Steve Hughes of Lewiston receives some of the last ice cream treats left from a Main Street Dairy Treat employee as the shop prepared to close Monday afternoon. Record-setting warm weather over the holiday weekend helped the shop to sell so much ice cream that they ran out and closed several hours early, manager Russell Angell said.
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