This winter is going to carry a dubious distinction in parts of New England.

The National Weather Service says the temperature from December through February was the warmest on record in Caribou, Maine; Concord, New Hampshire; and Providence, Rhode Island. It was the second-warmest in Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.

Those preliminary figures were released Tuesday.

All of northern New England has been battered by warm temperatures and heavy rain that has melted snow that's needed for winter tourism.

Officials say the average mean was 21.3 degrees in Caribou, beating the old record by three-tenths of a degree, and 37.3 in Providence, beating the old record by six-tenths of a degree. Concord's 30.9 degrees beat a record had stood since the winter of 1879-1880.