While the United States turned back the clocks an hour Sunday, Midcoast Maine set them back to winter.

That is, of course, if they had power.

At its peak, the Nov. 2 snowstorm caused 83,000 power outages, according to Central Maine Power spokesman John Carroll. If that number seems high, it's because it is high.

“At the peak there were 83,000 customers without power,” he said. “That's a big storm. I don't know how many a typical (winter) storm causes, but 83,000 is big.”

Carroll said the calendar had a lot to do with the outages, as most trees still have some leaves, and the heavy, wet snow typical to winter's bookends stayed on the limbs.

“When you look at the weight of the snow, you see that the early season snow tends to be a bit heavier,” he said. “Had this happened later, it likely would have been dryer, lighter. We might not have seen so many outages had it been that nice, light snow.”

But Carroll said CMP wasn't unprepared for the snow.

“We knew a storm was coming, it just happened to be in the high range,” he said. “Usually, when you hear a forecast and they say 'Expect 8 to 10 inches of snow' you get lucky and you only get seven inches. This time, we got the high number.

“It didn't sneak up on us; we had a rough idea of how much (snow) was coming, and when and where, but it was just at the high end of the predictions.”

To help combat the outages, CMP has recruited its in-state contractors, as well as help from Canada, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut. As of noon, Monday, Nov. 3, there were more than 17,000 customers without power in Lincoln County alone and 79,000 total outages in the state.

“We've finished in York and Cumberland counties, and we're moving those people up to Lincoln, Knox and Waldo County,” Carroll said.

Two days after a winter storm cloaked the Midcoast in the season's first snowfall, Lincoln County's power is almost fully restored.

By Tuesday, Nov. 4 that number had shriveled to 8,500 customers, as CMP continued to repair felled lines.

As of Tuesday morning, Boothbay had only 452 of its 2,770 customers without power; Boothbay Harbor (470 of 2,556), Bristol (382 of 2,880), Damariscotta (382 of 1,715) and South Bristol (20 of 1,128) all saw large portions of the town come back online. Some of the towns that are still largely without power include Bremen (637 of 654), Nobleboro (1,027 of 1,324) and Waldoboro (2,488 of 2,920).

As the storm clean-up and power restoration continues, it's Knox County that has the most outages remaining. As of Tuesday morning, Lincoln County's neighbor to the east still had 16,000 customers without power.

If you need to locate a warming center near you, call Lincoln County Communications Center at 207-882-7332.