Weird weather - Is Mother Nature having a month-long fit?
Jun. 26—Daniel Hicks, owner of Sunnycrest Farm in Londonderry, has seen his share of weird weather, including conditions that defy both reason and the season, and this year ranks right up there.
"The month of June has been horrible, and May wasn't good. We've had frosts and up and down weather before, but not so consistently cloudy and rainy like this, which slows the growing season," said the fruit and vegetable farmer.
A strange cold, rainy spell that began last month and swallowed most of June stalled strawberry picking at Sunnycrest by a week, he said. Lettuce, zucchini, acorn and summer squash are delayed even longer.
After a brief recent respite, forecasts for Northern New England this week call for a return to somber skies and rain, including flash flooding in some areas, according to the National Weather Service.
"The only competition in farming is Mother Nature," said Hicks. "Right now, she's a bad broad."
That assessment is not his alone.
Donny Dumont, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, recalls the summers of 2008 and 2009, when the sun seldom shone. Rainfall for June, July and August in Concord measured 16.13 inches in 2008, followed by 18.19 inches in 2009 — compared to the 11-inch norm for that period.
Overflowing gutters, culverts, buckets and barrels and flash floods were common — prompting higher-than-average frustration with New England's fickle, turbulent weather.
"Every day was rain. It was horrible," Dumont said. The weather was bad enough that he relocated to the West Coast for a couple of years, he said.
Pattern joykiller
The recent five-week stretch, during which New Hampshire has resembled the northern rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, is caused by a confluence of conditions in the upper atmosphere.
What typically leads to somber, wet weather this time of year is an upper-level low-pressure system from the Ohio Valley that gets anchored over New Hampshire by a ridge of high pressure off the North Atlantic coast, Dumont said.
Last week the Granite State received a humid, rainy front parked over Quebec. It got socked in here by high pressure in the upper atmosphere, which prevented it from moving through.
Now a low-pressure system arriving from the mid-Atlantic and Florida promises warmer temperatures and humid days ahead, with rain and thunderstorms in the afternoons, along with flood warnings, especially in mountain areas. Instead of showers all day, expect bursts of heavy rain, Dumont said.
"If the mountains get hit day after day after day, there will be some flash flooding," said the veteran weather watcher. "Be weather-aware, especially if you're camping near a river or stream, where most campsites are." Above-normal precipitation is expected through the July Fourth weekend, he said.
Is this going to be a summer with whipsawing weather shifts? Or a summer that never really kicks in?
"People don't understand it's been exceptionally dry for the past several summers, and now we're back to wetter weather. For the foreseeable future (up to 14 days) it looks extremely wet. We'll see how the summer ends up," Dumont said.
A real wet blanket
A bumper crop of sunshine on Thursday last week drew a record number of strawberry pickers to Sunnycrest Farm. "People are just dying to get out," after being stuck inside weekend after weekend, owner Hicks said, and feeling the onset of cabin fever. "Everybody who gets up knows when the sun has come out. Attitudes change. People are just happier."
The soggy start of summer has dampened travel plans.
"We're seeing a fair share of overnight cancellations," said John Nyhan, president of the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce. "A lot of people don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a hotel room to sit inside." Day trips to Hampton Beach have been average, he said, disappearing while it rains, then flocking outside when the sun peeks out.
Rain dampened visitor turnout June 17 at the 23rd annual sand sculpture competition at Hampton Beach. Ironically, steady light rain works to solidify the towering pieces, but a driving rain dissolves them, said event organizer Chuck Rage. As soon as the precipitation paused, folks were out to look at them.
At a picnic table at Sunnycrest Farm on Thursday, Cheryl Light of Florida happily soaked up the sun. It's what the retiree and former Granite Stater expected when she drove northward to spend the summer in her RV, which is parked behind her daughter's house in Hooksett.
Her take on the recent weather:
"It was horrific," Light said. "I'm used to going to the beach and being outside every day in shorts. I haven't put on slacks other than in winter time. Up here, I've been in pants the whole time since May 28."
Her granddaughter, 6-year-old Tenley Hunt, doesn't let bad weather become a wet blanket — even when rain cancels her softball games. "I find cool stuff to do indoors," she said. "I play with my stuffed animals."
Down Under water
Cassie Roe, a New Hampshire native who now lives in Auckland, New Zealand, arrived Thursday for family reunions in Hanover and at Squam Lake. Bad weather is relative, she said.
In New Zealand's capital, "We've had cyclones, floods, tropical cyclones. In four months, we've only had one week of sunny weather. From Christmas through almost now, it's been a monsoon season as opposed to a couple of days or a week of rain. In the first three weeks of January we had something like six weeks of rain."
Just before the family flew to Boston, a half-hour downpour closed the airports and sparked landslides near Auckland.
"Generally we're not ones to complain about the weather," she said, " but even we're pretty sick of it."
She is undiscouraged by New Hampshire's forecast.
"We've come from our shortest day (during the southern hemisphere's winter) to your longest day. We'll have games, cooking and chatting, and a 9-month-old baby — my mother's first grandchild. There will be 19 of us. I don't think we'll be bored."
At the lake, she said, "We'll go swimming in the rain. Rain means nothing when you're wet."
Julie Mazza of Boston stopped at the Hooksett rest stop to pick up supplies for a camping vacation in Tamworth. When it gets wet, "We'll probably just hang out. We have a canopy," she said.
Matthew Paresci of Nashua, a vinyl siding contractor, said rain doesn't stop his jobs unless it's heavy. "For me, working outside, it puts a damper on things."
He said his company is at least three jobs behind because of recent solid rain. "A couple of days to catch up on each one turns into a week of backed-up work."
Weather whiplash
On Friday at Manchester's Livingston Park, Kim Lillis of Hillsborough, who works for Lucas Tree Experts, was enjoying lunch in the sun while mourning the effects of May's heavy frost on oaks and fruit and nut trees. That will spell a dearth of walnuts and acorns this winter, particularly up north, she said.
"Some oak trees have not leafed out. I'm concerned about the wildlife." So many species feed on acorns, she said.
Does the recent rain marathon imperil trees? "We'll end up with a lot more bacteria and fungus infections because it's not drying out," Lillis said.
At Livingston Park on Friday morning, it was hard to imagine dark clouds coming back to dump rain again this week.
Will that be a downer for human moods and outlooks?
"It's kind of difficult for our body to adapt," said Mossi Hicuburundi of Manchester, who works in human services.
With long periods of rain interspersed with occasional days of sun, "It's like a burst of seasonal affective disorder that goes away and comes back," said his co-worker from Salem, who smiled as she sat beside the pond in the sun. "Then we're blessed with days like today."
