Forget Maine’s annual mud season. This year’s shaping up to be more of a fast forward leap into summer-like temperatures and weather with record-setting high temperatures the last two days and more to come this week.

Stacie Hanes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, confirmed that Portland saw two record-setting days Sunday and Monday with high temperatures hitting 70 degrees.

Residents in the Twin Cities also basked in the warmth of record-setting temperatures for the start of spring with 78 degrees Sunday, up 18 degrees from the 1945 record of 60 degrees. Monday’s high reached 71 degrees, climbing one notch above the 1979 record of 70 degrees for the same day in March.

Mother Nature must have missed the Farmers’ Almanac prediction for a winter of “clime and punishment” with heavier than normal precipitation, but hit the mark on above average temperatures this season. Hanes said the region saw just 23.5 inches of snowfall this past winter, compared to the normal average of 44.4 inches, with the majority of those flakes flying in January, which saw 18.7 inches.

Farmers’ Almanac publisher Peter Geiger stood behind his publication’s official reclusive forecaster, Caleb Weatherbee, who called for a stormier than normal winter, namely in the vein of rain or mixed precipitation. He said the weather prognosticator was right about the above normal temperatures. He said they thought there would be longer stretches between the fluctuation in temperatures, and not day-to-day changes like the region experienced.

“It was every other day it seemed like cold or warm,” Geiger said. “I wasn’t thinking of all the variations. I expected a good ice storm in there, but that wasn’t how it worked out.”

On the other hand, The Old Farmers Almanac, published by Yankee Magazine, also had a winter prediction that was half right. The New Hampshire-based publication called for both below normal temperatures and below normal precipitation.

According to Hanes, the region experienced an unusually warm winter this year due to the La Nina weather pattern. She said this ocean-atmosphere phenomenon also accounts for the year’s warmer than normal temperatures.

“The three-month outlook has us above normal for temperatures and equal chances for above or below normal for precipitation,” Hanes said.

Hanes said the somewhat conflicting outlook for precipitation in based on meteorologists not having a clear understanding yet of what to expect for summer rainfall.

Farmers’ Almanac joins the National Weather Service in predicting above normal temperatures for the coming summer. Weatherbee is also predicting a dry summer as well.