By 5:30 p.m. today, power had been restored to all but about 383 of the 11,300 households throughout Maine that were left in the dark by an overnight storm whose high winds downed power lines.

In southern Maine, about 5,000 customers of Central Maine Power Co. were affected by wind gusts and rain.

Karen Marston uses an umbrella as she leaves work at Portland City Hall on Wednesday. The storm gathered strength overnight, knocking out power to thousands of Mainers.

The highest number of outages in southern Maine was in Sebago, where 1,300 of CMP’s 1,600 electricity customers lost power, although many households had power restored by Thursday morning.

As the last of the wind and rain blew out of the region, the Portland area had a record high temperature by 6 a.m., reaching 53 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, beating the previous record of 51 degrees, set in 1985.

February, however, is not on track to beat the record high for average temperature, which was 32.3 degrees in 1981.

After all, it was 10 degrees below zero less than two weeks ago.

The average temperature for February so far is 27.3 degrees, with just a few days left in the month.

Tonight, temperatures are expected to plummet into the 20s, rising on Friday only into the mid-30s.

“Any water that lingers around will freeze up,” said meteorologist Tom Hawley of the National Weather Service office in Gray.

Monday will mark the end of the meteorological winter, which began in December. The record high temperature for the season is 31.3 degrees and the average is 25.6 degrees.

Meteorologist Eric Schwibs didn’t know the season-to-date temperature, but it doesn’t seem to be headed for the record books.

Staff Writer Leslie Bridgers contributed to this report.

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