The Boston area is looking at another soggy weekend that would make it the 13th straight wet Saturday — which would be the longest stretch of Saturdays with precipitation since the National Weather Service started keeping records.
“The last stretch of wet Saturdays this long was in 1970,” said Bryce Williams, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norton, Massachusetts. “This weekend has a decent chance of breaking that record.”
“It seems like every Saturday is a washout,” said Christopher Lane, director of operations at the famous South Boston seafood shack, Sullivan’s on Castle Island. “The lines are definitely shorter on these weekends when we have rainy weather.”
Lane said they lose about 80% of their business on a rainy weekend day — though he said there have been ample days during the week with summery weather.
“But the weekend’s when the parents are off from work, kids are off from school, is when they really want to come out and enjoy that time. And you just haven’t had it,” he explained.
Boston’s famous duck boats are dealing with the same problem.
“It’s tough because it’s open seven days a week, but our busiest day by far is Saturday and Sunday right behind it,” said Cindy Brown, Boston Duck Tours’ CEO. “I can deal with a rainy Tuesday, but a rainy Saturday and Sunday really hit our numbers a lot harder than it would be if it was in the middle of the week.”
As summer ramps up, these kind of rain events should become less common, GBH News’ meteorologist Dave Epstein says.
“It’s just bad luck,” he said. “It will break at some point. Especially by mid-June when the jet stream typically slows down and the precipitation is triggered by temperature contrasts which means it will less likely create all day rain events.”
Epstein points out there’s an upside to the string of bad luck: grass is looking great, and the area is no longer in a drought. “You always have to look at the glass as half full,” he said.
Wet weekends can be a boom for some businesses, too.
“On a nice weather day in late May, early June, our attendance on a weekend day might be in the 1,500 to 2,000 range, and we’ve seen more days that are in the 2,500 to 3,000 range with those rainy days,” said Justine DeCotis, who leads visitor experience at the Boston Children’s Museum.
The museum also credits newly opened attractions, including a Winnie the Pooh Experience called Hundred Acre Wood, which runs through mid-September.
“Maybe the rain is a factor, but hopefully some of the great stuff we’re doing at the museum is bringing people in as well.”
“There are some Saturdays where we’ll do three times the amount of sales that we were expecting because it’s raining out,” said Kayla Barry Skinner, who manages The Next Chapters Books and More in Quincy Center.
“Even when it’s sopping out and people are coming in drenched, they’re excited to pick up a good book, maybe find a good beach read for hopefully the next weekend when it’s going to be nice.”
When the pattern of wet weekends does break and the story turns to hot days and heatwaves, she says the bookstore’s ready for that chapter, too.
“We always have the AC pumping in here. So even if it’s a hot day, come on by,“ Barry Skinner said.
