PORTLAND, Maine — Frigid drizzle and an oppressive fog draped themselves over the city on Monday, obscuring the tops of modest-sized buildings, making fishing boats waver in and out of focus as they chugged between Fort Gorges and the mainland.
Ahh, summertime in Maine, or at least it’s supposed to be.
The damp, unsettled weather is slated to continue all week as one of the rainiest Junes on record comes to an end.
If it doesn’t rain another drop, June 2023 will go down as the ninth rainiest June in recent memory for Portland. So far, this month, the National Weather Service in Gray has recorded 4.72 inches of rain in the city. The average June sees about 3.53 inches.
The wettest June in the last quarter century came in 2006 when 9.18 inches of rain fell from the sky in Portland. The city’s wettest June ever, since records started in 1871, was in 1917 when 10.86 inches of rain were recorded.
Likewise, to date, Bangor has seen 4.89 inches of rain this year, which is well above its total monthly June average of 3.24 inches.
According to the National Weather Service in Caribou, the wettest ever June for the Queen City, since record keeping began in 1953, was in 2006 when 8.10 inches of rain poured from the heavens.
Both Portland and Bangor are averaging at least three degrees cooler per day than a normal June as well.
The weather service is calling for a continual chance of rain between Monday and Friday, the least day of the month, of at least 30 percent in skies over Portland and Bangor.
The current marine forecast sums it up, reading, “Prolonged period of inclement weather with slow moving areas of low pressure pass through the region through this week. This pattern will bring marine fog and stratus with occasional rain showers.”
Maybe summer will start in July this year.
