I just want it to go away!!!!! Thanks for the link, Gardenguy, that's interesting......but I still don't like it.

Couldn't believe it myself when I saw it the weather channel this morning. What next?

This is the 2nd one to roll through recently. Fall/winter is usually Nor'easter time of the year but we have to blame a blocking High for this nuisance weather. Sigh.... It's a shame to complain when we had nice sunny somewhat average/warm days but we need our regular weather patterns back and not the feast/famine. :\

Abundant rain?? I don't know.... we are still really dry here, even with a scattered shower now and then. I need a day of steady rain to get down into the soil.
Even though my plants are wilting and grass is turning crispy, I feel funny standing around in long pants and a coat watering the garden!

I'm in your boat Kato. I'm just glad the temps cooled to reduce my watering. In spite of the showers we are dry here, and I've been fretting over keeping my recent transplants moist. Was working on weeds yesterday (in the rain) and was amazed to find the soil bone dry under the mulch.

It was supposed to rain all day yesterday.... again all we got was a passing shower. It was gone in an hour and dry enough for me to mow the lawn. My soil is also bone dry under the mulch.

I broke down and watered. Looks like the hostas have already expanded, everything else looks happier too. Tomorrow I may wash the car, that should do the trick and bring in some rain.

It was forecast to be partly sunny down here yesterday with a high near 70. But in reality It was overcast and lightly raining on and off all day and it barely cracked 60 (and that didn't happen until late in the day) with a chill-to-the-bone wind. Sun is out this morning finally.

I saw an interesting map on accuweather.com either yesterday or Wed. that showed what the precipitation trends had been during these rain events and they did show that all across the Northern tier counties of PA back into the upper Midwest, the precipatation was well below normal, where down here, into MD, and along the Jersey coast, it was above. This not a monthly but I believe for the last week or so.

This morning's Inquirer has an article on how cold it's been. It may wind up being the coldest May in 38 years!
I recall they said that March was also the coldest in 20 some years....

It's also going to more difficult to adjust to the hot weather when it finally arrives.

Here is a link that might be useful: not exactly swimming weather

Thanks for the link paula! The high here in the city did reach I think 82 or 83 finally. I noticed that the local NWS forecast discussion for last night (repeated by the day shift this afternoon), had some interesting stats regarding the unusually low number of severe storms this month as well as citing some average temperatures over the past 11 years and doing some musing and speculation, based on past trends, about what might happen this summer. Since they change their forecast discussion pages over time and only archive a few iterations on the website, I'll quote those stats here:

.MISCELLANEOUS...
THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT (GIGI) PUT TOGETHER SOME INTERESTING STATISTICS, THEREFORE WE WILL REPOST IT AGAIN AT REQUEST:

THERE HAVE BEEN ONLY TWO SVR WX EVENTS SO FAR THIS MONTH OF MAY IN THE WFO PHI CWA. WHL WE STILL HAVE SVRL DAYS TO GO...THIS WOULD TIE MAY OF 2003 FOR THE LEAST NUMBER OF SVR WX EVENTS SINCE THE OFFICE MOVED INTO NJ. THE OTHER MAY SVR WX EVENT TOTALS INCLUDED:

1994...17
1995...33
1996...26
1997...42
1998...61
1999...23
2000...80
2001...12
2002...92
2003... 2
2004...56

SPEAKING OF ODD...GIVEN HOW ODD THIS METEOROLOGICAL SPRING IS (MARCH WAS VERY CHILLY/APR UNSEASONABLY WARM/MAY FURGET ABOUT IT)...WE DECIDED TO VISIT THIS AND DUST OFF THE ANALUGS ARE US COBWEBS AND TAKE A GANDER AT THE UPCOMING SUMMER. THE FOLLOWING 11 YEARS HAD BOTH AN UNSEASONABLY WARM APRIL (UPPER THIRD OF ALL APRILS DURING THE PERIOD OF RECORD AT PHL SINCE 1872) AND UNSEASONABLY COOL MAY (LOWER THIRD OF ALL MAYS SAME PERIOD OF RECORD) IN TANDEM. THE ENSUING SUMMER MONTHS/S TEMPS ARE SHOWN BLO ALONG WITH THE TOTAL PCPN TO MAKE OUR SERVICE HYDROLOGIST HAPPY. THE YEARS MARKED WITH AN *** ALSO HAD AN UNSEASONABLY COLD MARCH. IF THIS SUMMER/S MEAN TEMP COMES CLOSE TO 72.8 BASED ON THE ***...WE/LL RETIRE. BUT THEN AGAIN IF WE WERE THAT GOOD...WOULD WE BE WORKING MIDS LEADING INTO THE FIRST BIG HOLIDAY WEEKEND OF THE "SUMMER"?

ALL FOR PHILADELPHIA

YEAR JUN JUL AUG AVG TEMP TOTAL PCPN
1878 67.4 77.6 73.9 73.0 11.84
1891*** 71.8 71.9 74.3 72.7 11.38
1915*** 69.6 76.0 73.1 72.9 15.31
1925 78.0 76.2 74.8 76.3 8.16
1938 71.3 77.2 78.4 75.6 20.68
1945 71.5 76.0 74.1 73.9 16.38
1952 74.7 80.1 75.2 76.7 11.95
1954 72.9 77.9 73.5 74.8 8.69
1958 67.8 77.4 73.4 72.9 17.31
1960*** 70.6 73.3 74.5 72.8 9.42
1968 71.2 77.1 77.8 75.4 9.13

AVERAGE 71.5 76.4 74.8 74.2 12.75
1971-2000 NML 72.3 77.6 76.3 75.4 12.03