LEWISTON — On Thursday, the basketball courts at Kennedy Park in Lewiston were packed with high-schoolers playing ball. The sharp crack of skateboards on concrete drifted over from the skatepark, where local rippers were rolling out their first runs of the season.

Lewiston-Auburn pulled down its shades that night, content that spring had made its return after a particularly cold winter.

Then the snow came, and just like that, the Twin Cities and the rest of Maine were plunged back into the depths of winter.

Beginning late Thursday night, the snow came thick, heavy and wet, and kept falling throughout the day Friday. Eleven inches fell in Oxford, National Weather Service meteorologist Margaret Curtis said, nearing the 11.1-inch record for Portland set in 1922.

Portland got 5.9 inches Friday, but other communities throughout the region saw between 6 and 11 inches; and the town of Hope in Knox County got 13.5 inches. Lewiston saw 10.3 inches and Auburn, 8, according to Curtis.

“It was certainly the largest April storm we’ve had in the last couple years,” she said. The most recent record for snowfall in the first week of April was set in 2007, when 5.6 inches fell. Other late-season storms came in 1982, when 14 inches fell on April 6; and in 1945, when 7 inches piled up on May 11, the season’s latest measurable snowfall, Curtis said.

“We’ve got a while to go before we’re officially out of snow season,” Curtis said.

The thought of another potential month of snow was too much for Mohamed Mohamud to bear.

The 15-year-old, wearing a jacket, basketball jersey and shorts, took a shovel down to the Kennedy Park courts and cleared off a lane from the free-throw line to the basket. His friend Carlos Gonzalez, 14, joined him and the two began shooting as the snow tapered from fluffy flakes to light sleet late in the afternoon. It was better than staying inside all day, they said, before brushing sticky snow off a ball that got away.

The storm caused trouble for motorists and wreaked havoc on power lines. Conditions on Interstate 295 were “pretty dicey, to say the least,” Brunswick Naval Air Station spokesman John Ripley said after seeing four cars off the road while trying to get to work Friday morning. Ripley decided to turn around and return home.

Strong winds coupled with heavy snow knocked out power around the state, CMP spokesman John Carroll reported in a press release sent at 5 p.m. About 19,000 customers were in the dark Friday evening. At the peak of the storm early Friday afternoon, more than 25,000 homes were without power, Carroll said.

CMP took on additional line and tree contractors to deal with the damage, and had almost 600 workers out making repairs during the day, he said.

acullen@sunjournal.com

Friday snowfall totals:

Hope — 13.5 “

Raymond — 11″

Oxford — 11″

Lewiston — 10.3″

Gray — 9.6″

Turner — 9″

Auburn — 8″

Portland — 5.9″