The first weekend in November, when daylight savings time ends, is usually a symbolic welcome to the winter season in Maine — going forward, we lose an hour of daylight at the end of the day, and accept that cold temperatures will be the norm until at least March.
This weekend, however, the weather will be more like early June than early November, with temperatures expected to soar past 70 for most of the state on Saturday, which is predicted to also be a beautiful, sunny day.
For Bangor, the warmth will start on Friday when temperatures reach 67 during the day, followed by three predicted days of temps in the low 70s on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
The historic average temperature for Bangor for all four of those days is around 50 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The record-high temperature for Nov. 4 is 72. It’s 71 for Nov. 5, 75 for Nov. 6 and 72 for Nov. 7.
We don’t have specific years for any of those dates besides Nov. 6, as daily temperature records only go back to 1945, though they were all before that year. Regardless, if the forecast holds, we’re on track to at least tie the all-time record high for two of those four days.
Furthermore, that record high on Nov. 6 of 75 is also the all-time high record for the entire month of November for Bangor, set way back in 1938, according to the National Weather Service. It seems doubtful Bangor will see temps that high this weekend, but hey — forecasts have been wrong before.
Bangor hasn’t seen temperatures above 60 on Nov. 5 since 2010, when it hit 61 on that day. For Nov. 6, it was just two years ago, in 2020, when it hit 63. That said, Bangor has only seen temperatures above 60 six times in the past 30 years on Nov. 5 or Nov. 6 — and it hasn’t hit 70 on either of those days in at least 77 years, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s records dating back to 1945. We couldn’t find a single Nov. 5 or 6 in all those 77 years with temperatures above 70 degrees, so all those records had to have been set before 1945.
But the balmy days won’t last.
Temperatures in Bangor on Tuesday, Nov. 8, Election Day, should slide back into a more seasonally appropriate mid-50s. That’s where temperatures are expected to hover for the remainder of that week — though that’s still between 5 and 10 degrees above the average temp for this time of year of around 48.5.
Will we be able to comfortably wear short sleeves outside on Thanksgiving? We’ll find out soon.