This has been going on for the last two weeks.
(Thumbs Down)





Beneath skies the color of dryer lint, seeds rotted and people swore. The moss under the trees has been creeping closer to the house to join with the black splotches of mold on the clapboards. By fall, the home could look like the stump of an enormous tree and sprout bracket fungi and ferns.

The grass laughs at the mower, the hay at the baler. The barbecue grill rusts. The dog, who's set a new record for continence, eyes the sodden lawn and steady drizzle. He slinks toward a hidden corner of the porch, his intent clear, and has to be threatened into going out under the ever-present rain.

Concord has received twice its normal amount of precipitation so far this month. Though temperatures have averaged more than 3 degrees below normal, it's still too warm and muggy to work outdoors in rain gear. Linemen, road crews, construction workers and dripping young baseball players suffer in soggy silence.

The aroma from sneakers that haven't been dry in weeks has reached hazardous levels. They are no longer allowed indoors.

Crops are weeks behind, and the lower leaves of tomato plants are turning yellow. Diehard fans have given up on tasting a sun-warmed strawberry. The Merrimack is high, brown and swirling the lower branches of riparian trees, the water too fast and full for fishing.

Mosquitoes, which can now breed pretty much wherever they want, are gathering in squadrons. In Maryland, the authorities use a simple test to determine when it's time to spray to control them - expose an arm and count the number of landings per minute. Hit 12 and it's time to spray. In one county, the landing rates averaged 30 or more per minute, and during one feeding frenzy, hit 90.

With no sun to warm lakes and ponds the water has remained unswimmably cold. Baseball games, barbecues and other events have been delayed or rained out, adding the weather to the woes of the recession. Money from lost attendance can never be made up.

A scarcely-known golfer named Lucas Glover beat Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson Monday in a U.S. Open in Farmingdale, N.Y., that had to be delayed repeatedly because of rain. Referees should test him for duck genes.

Movie houses are doing a good business with tourists who couldn't wait to flee the city with their families when school let out. Before the film starts, they grumble and talk about selling their camping gear.

The big question is who or what to blame for this miserable start to the summer of 2009. The facile answer is climate change which, in the short run, doesn't always make temperatures warmer but does make weather weirder.

Meteorologists say the polar jet stream, the river of cold air that normally flows west to east, has remained in the south instead of taking its customary path over Canada. Its cold air keeps clashing with hot sticky air flowing up from the south to create a long, slow drizzle that's drained people's energy and put them in a bad mood.

If the National Weather Service is right, the sun could show up tomorrow - along with showers - but there's a 50 percent chance that it will rain that night. The first full day of sun, with temperatures in the 80s, is not predicted to occur until next Monday. So hang in there, and do whatever you can to keep up your spirits. Just don't start crooning "Singing in the Rain." You could get shot.