This has been a great summer of weather for the beach, the lake or a pool.  Even sitting in one of the many rivers of Maine has been an enjoyable time.   The abundance of sunshine has stressed out lawns and gardens, but if your not into plants, it’s been a tremendous summer, some might say one of the best in years.

Do you love the heat or not like it so much?

Personally, I have found the summer hot. The number bear this out with the average temperature in Portland for July about 2 degrees warmer than the 30 year average.  Rainfall has been sparse this month, about half what we would normally expect.

Our weather will be controlled by a slow moving low pressure system through Tuesday.  This “storm” will keep clouds and the chance for showers in the forecast for three days, but showers will be limited.  This is the type of pattern where you will see showers on your smartphone, but you’ll likely go hours and hours without a drop of rain.  The best chance for rain will be over the southwestern part of the area and back through New Hampshire.  After midmorning even there showers will end.  Basically leaving clouds.

Predictive radar for Sunday

Tomorrow is a similar story, a lot of clouds and again the chance for showers. It won’t be very warm with highs in the lower and middle 70s.  It will be coolest along the coast with a flow off the ocean.

The middle of this week brings a return to sunshine and warm readings.  Temperatures will go back into the upper 70s to lower 80s between Wednesday and Friday. Humidity will be moderate, not high, but still noticeable.

August can be a split month with the first half feeling like mid-summer and the final 10 days bringing a touch of fall, especially at night.  I don’t see any widespread rain our future and will likely need to wait until either a tropical system or a winter type of storm reaches the region before we see widespread significant precipitation.

A DRY PATTERN

We’ve see dry years before and this can become especially true in the summer.  The image below shows how much below average many years were back in the 1960’s.  These patterns do break, but it might be we have entered a period of dry weather that will last for a while.   If you’re able to water do so early in the morning and keep those roots evenly moist.

Rainfall as compared to average. Green line is actual, brown is average.