Happy Flag Day.  Mid-June is usually much better than this.   Another nor’easter is now pushing east and the rain over extreme southern Maine will taper off this morning.   If you are around York, Kittery, and up to about Kennebunk there can be some heavier showers early today.  The trend will be for improvement this afternoon with some sunshine returning.  I can’t rule out another pop-up shower or thunderstorm after 3 p.m. today as the air remains unstable.

This morning, a storm is located just east of Cape Cod.  If this had been winter, which it feels like in my house today, southern New England would have seen as much as 2 feet of snow in places from this type of setup. Here in Maine we would have mostly missed the storm.  Our pattern from February and early March really hasn’t stopped, it just took a break in April.

The radar loop below shows heavy rain pivoting through York County.  This area must move through before we can begin the process of drying out.   The real heavy rain remains across southern New England and will not move northward.

The pattern looks to remain active and more showers are possible from later Sunday and into next week.  Temperatures also look to be seasonable, but no big heat is in sight.

The weekend is still looking good; however, we might have issues later Sunday.   Saturday high pressure will build into the area and give us a very nice day.  Highs will be well into the 70s and the ground will begin to dry.  Notice on the map below for Saturday there are not any foul weather systems near New England!

Sunday, all the computer models have a system moving into western Maine.  The GFS is faster with this system and therefore has showers moving into the area in the afternoon, the ECMWF (Euro) is slower and holds off the showers until nightfall.  This area of showers isn’t by any means a big rain maker.  Rainfall will be scattered and not heavy.   Since it’s Father’s Day many of you will have outdoor plans including cooking out, heading to the beach or playing a round of golf.   There will be sunshine for much of the morning with clouds mixing with the sun in the afternoon.  Highs will be in the 70s and that chance of showers will begin first in the mountains and then move east.  I will refine the timing later today and tomorrow.  Hopefully, we can keep any rain away until mid-evening, if at all.

If we see showers Sunday night they will push eastward Monday and leave us with a nice warm day.  Highs will hit the 70s and it will feel quite nice.   Tuesday is a showery day, but Wednesday and Thursday do look drier.  Temperatures will be in the lower 70s much of next week.  I am not going to try to predict next weekend, I am nervous enough about telling you this one is going to be mostly rain free.

Finally, all these periods of rain are causing issues in gardens.  There are products out there that work to prevent fungus which is the biggest issue.  Red thread in lawns is very common and although unsightly, it will grow out.  You know you have red thread if you have patches of lawn that look like they’re dying and there is fuzzy pink or red stuff on the grass.  A shot of fertilizer often can help the lawn grow out of this problem.   More gardening information is below. 

Gardening this week: With all the rain this month your soil might be water logged. Raised beds are a great way to grow flowers, vegetables, even trees and shrubs when you have limited space or need to create a new growing area. In the following video watch how we create a raised bed for a suburban homeowner. You could do the same thing anywhere by just changing the scale to fit your needs.

I’ll be updating the details of the rain on Twitter at @growingwisdom Please follow me there. Feel free to comment or ask questions too.

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