April showers mostly never materialized, and it appears they are going to be with us instead as May starts.

The forecast is going to confuse a lot of you this week.  Those smartphones are going to make it seem as if we are destined for a week of rain. You will see the term “rain showers”  or “showers” used in addition to just the word “rain.” So what’s the difference? It’s all water.

The former (showers) is used when the precipitation is more intermittent and shorter in duration.  A day with showers can also see some breaks of sun or at the least several hours of dry conditions.  With steady rain the duration is longer, lasting at least a few hours, and the clouds producing steady rain tend to be flatter and don’t have as much vertical development. They aren’t puffy and billowy.

Sometimes showers are described as heavy, moderate or light. You could get a heavy shower lasting an hour and receive 2 inches of precipitation while a daylong light rain might yield less than half that amount.

You likely just want to know if you need the umbrella or not and if your commute will be slowed further, so let’s get to that part of the forecast.

NO DAY A FULL WASHOUT

Today we find an area of rain to our west moving eastward, destined to get us all wet for several hours this afternoon.  The trajectory of this rainfall brings it into Maine this afternoon with a heathy dose of rain, about half an inch falling.

Tomorrow brings another cloudy day. Rather than a steady period of rain, showers will be more widely scattered and could occur almost any time.  It will be cool with highs in the lower to mid-50s.

Wednesday is a better day.  It’s still cool, but there will be some sunshine with clouds and a very low risk of a shower, if they occur at all.  It will be dry 80 percent of the daytime Tuesday, and it will be dry 95 percent of Wednesday.  In other words, showers, and not a lot of them.

The second half of the workweek continues the unsettled patterns with periods of sunshine and clouds.  It will continue to feel cool with highs in the upper 50s to low 60s, but not as chilly as the next two to three days.

The weekend isn’t going to be a washout, but not perfect either.  Sunshine will mix with clouds, it should be in the 60s and yes, showers are still in the forecast, mostly for Sunday, but at least you now know, that means it won’t be a rainy weekend.

Follow Dave Epstein’s forecast on Twitter @growingwisdom