Sheri Griffin checks out the string beans from Big Train Farm, in Cranston, owned by John Kenny, right. Big Train was among the growers at the downtown farmers market, in Kennedy Plaza, on Friday.

The Providence Journal Kathy Borchers

If we could pick a symbol for this spring, it would be windshield wipers set on intermittent.

Except for an occasional glorious day, sunglasses have seen little use since March 20, the beginning of the astrological spring, and Sunday, when summer officially begins.

And although it seems to be eternally raining or about to rain, we’re still behind on precipitation for this time of the year.

The good news is green lawns, lower water bills and less exposure to sun damage.

The bad news is that gardens got off to a slow start, the Father’s Day cookout might have a garage theme, and anyone hoping to lift the gloom by indulging in heavenly blueberries, home-grown tomatoes and fresh native corn might have to wait an extra week or two.

Ken Mott, of Hope Valley, put in 600 tomato plants this year at Fenner Ridge Farm; he expects a delay in the harvest. He also tends 400 blueberry bushes, which peak around mid-August; blueberries get their best flavor from dry weather, he said.

In his 63 years of paying close attention to the weather, Mott said, he’s noticed that one in three years will have a bone-dry June, one in three will have a wet June “and then it’ll be like this,” which he calls “right down the middle.”

Mott doesn’t buy that a rainy spring will flip into a hot, dry summer. “Typically when you get a pattern,” he said, “the pattern holds.”

At the Pennsylvania headquarters of Accuweather, meteorologist Mark Paquette attributed this year’s unusually cool and cloudy June to a jet stream that typically reaches Canada by now but is still hanging low over the Northeast.

With it comes cool and unsettled weather, said Paquette, 34, who grew up in Worcester. He said Rhode Island will get its share of warm, humid beach days this summer, but “we’re not calling for any major heat wave.”

People who hope for beach weather, he said, can watch for a Bermuda high, which is high pressure in the mid-Atlantic that pushes warm, humid air toward Rhode Island beaches.

Bruce Payton, president of the Glocester Land Trust, saw a bright spot in the drizzly spring. “It was great for slugs,” he offered Friday.

The Rhode Island Natural History Survey’s 10th-annual BioBlitz — a 24-hour count of life forms — took place June 5 and 6 at Sprague Farm. “It wasn’t raining that bad” for the cookout on June 5, Payton said, and about 60 people spent a drippy night in tents. By 3 p.m. the next day, naturalists had found “the most diverse population of terrestrial slugs in the state.”

The Scituate Reservoir is at 98.6 percent of capacity, at 283.54 feet, compared with the historical average of 283.38 feet, said David Nickerson, senior manager of communications for the Providence Water Supply Board. “The planets are aligned and there’s plenty of water to drink.”

At the Kent County Water Authority, general manager Timothy Brown reported “all our capacities up to full.” He’s prepared for the weather to turn “very hot very quickly” and recommends raising the mower blade. Short grass is fine in wet weather, he said, but a lawn cut to 3.5 inches has a better chance of surviving drought.

In Seattle, which is known for dreary, sunless days, “This has been a great spring,” said Dennis D’Amico, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service there. “We’ve had a string of sunny days, with a lot of nice weather on weekends” starting a week before Memorial Day.

The Seattle area on Thursday ended a 29-day dry streak, tying a record set in 1982. “Our grass is brown,” D’Amico said.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for most of Rhode Island from Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, and 1 to 3 inches of rain is expected. People living in areas prone to flooding should be prepared to take action.Shades of gray

•April and May had only 3 clear days each, and there has been none so far in June.

•The average temperature in June has been 62.6, or 3.5 degrees cooler than normal.

•In the first 18 days of June, 12 were cooler than average and 6 were warmer than average.

•Precipitation for the year was 1.32 inches less than normal as of 6 p.m. Friday.

•In the 90 days since March 20, 55 have brought measurable rain or at least a trace of precipitation.

dnaylor@projo.com