Rain is hugging the coast this morning with showers scattered across inland sections. If you showed me the weather from this morning, without temperatures, I would easily guess it was the middle of winter.  A winter-like storm is moving northward from near Cape Cod and will be east of Portland later today. This setup leaves much of the area on the cool and wet side of the storm and makes it feel more like fall than summer.

The rain will continue much of the morning and then taper off later today as the storm moves north of our area and heads towards Canada.  Temperatures will be cool all day with a northeast wind and no sunshine.  There can be periods of heavy downpours, especially along the coast where up to an inch of rain could fall.

On Twitter this morning, I asked followers to rank the summer.  A few folks have had numbers over 5, but many are under.  Some of you have loved all the heat and humidity and gave this summer a 9 so far.  My perception of this summer is that it’s been a summer of extremes.
 
It’s either been too wet, too hot, too humid, too cool or too buggy.  The last part isn’t weather related, but I figure it’s related to the wet June so I’m complaining.    I give it a 5, it hasn’t been the worse summer of weather, but certainly lacking in the dry warm days I love.  One of my favorite rankings was “oscillating between 1 and 10.” I suppose it’s true that our weather is often extreme, but this summer it seems particularly so.

There is nothing anyone can do about the weather of course except talk about it.  As we often hear, “it is what is it” and we can’t change it.  Tomorrow today’s rain will be to our east and sunshine will return.  Temperatures will be warm and there won’t be much humidity.    Saturday’s weather is shaping up to be a 9 or 10 with abundant sunshine and highs in the 80s.  If you haven’t been to the beach, lake, river or pool this year, tomorrow is your opportunity.

Sunday isn’t looking nearly as nice with clouds moving back into the region and that possibility of showers and thunderstorms returning for the afternoon.  Highs will be in the lower 80s and you will notice a return of humidity in the air.

The reason for the rain on Sunday is a slow moving front coming from the west.  Since the front is moving slowly, it will take its time getting here, but take its time leaving as well.  This means clouds and showers can linger into Monday before clearing takes place during the afternoon.

Tuesday and Wednesday look terrific with sunshine and warm and dry conditions. Some showers can return for the second part of next week.

There is a tropical system in the Atlantic named Dorian. Currently, computer models have this storm continuing to move westward, making into the Bahamas during the middle of next week.  From that point we will have to watch to see if it curves towards the eastern seaboard, heads back out to sea or ends up in the Gulf of Mexico.  

Gardening this week All this wet weather has made growing tomatoes somewhat challenging. There are many diseases that show up when the weather is cloudy and moist. If you are trying to grow tomatoes without chemicals it can be somewhat challenging. The video below shows you several different products to use when growing tomatoes or other crops, without chemicals. I’ll be updating the details of the weather on Twitter at @growingwisdom Please follow me there. Feel free to comment or ask questions too.