Humidity in a Maine weather forecast.

 When it happens you feel droggy, sluggish, out of sorts. Not on the top of your game. Not as productive as you are used to being each day. Lack of sleep when it gets hot and humid takes it toll. Being a little edgy, with a hair trigger for some people’s crank factor. Irritability happens when a busy hard working Mainer is not able to crank out the same work load as they are used to doing daily. You feel a sense of getting behind in the sweltering crush of heat. The lack of motivation feels like you slipped on cement shoes.

Humidity is not the norm in Maine weather climate patterns.

You could say most Mainers are pretty heat intolerant. And unless the individual has a medical condition where poor circulation keeps them craving heat all year round, most prefer our weather to be a little on the cool side over hot, hot, hot. A breeze adds to the comfort level inside and outside to keep the air moving and not becoming heavy or stagnant.

When the humidity increases, the productivity of Mainers suffers. You don’t feel good and at first wonder is something wrong medically. When it dawns on you, this is one of the few days or short spells of high humidity that is like a lead blanket heavy. That slows you down when you are used to accomplishing much around your property or when you are physically laboring for a living. Being on a black asphalt shingled roof and replacing the old shingles with new ones is not fun when the perspiration water is gushing off you or blurring your vision. Relief from the heat starts with opening up a Maine home in the early morning hours when Mother Nature allows a temporary cease fire.

Some folks are affected by the humidity more than others.

COPD makes catching your breath even hard when the heat index, ozone alert, humidity rises. No one likes the feeling of just getting out of the morning shower or taking a refreshing dip in a Maine lake and for a time feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed. And then it happens. Within ten minutes of leaving for work or to explore Maine on a vacation you feel like you desperately need another shower or a repeat dunking in the waterfront to cool off and back up to restart the day. Because we get little humidity in the summer living and due to winter being a dry not wet or moist cold, our practice with the water laden air is limited.

It does not take long. You do quickly remember how much one does not enjoy the uncomfortable feeling of sweating and trying to shed any unnecessary clothing. Of staying hydrated and if you are lucky enough, being able to stay close to the waterfront to get in, get out. To stay refreshed until the spell of humid weather in Maine passes. To head for the beaches in Maine.

So Maine is as a rule not a humid state and unlike many southern locals that experience the worst side of global warming.

To make an already hot unbearable area more difficult. Hiding out in air conditioning is a temporary fix but being cooped up inside can make a true Mainer feel like a caged animal. Because any of the four seasons, we are outside more than inside four walls. More on Maine’s weather, climate, topography.

So this time of year, because of humidity, in my day job I see a lot of reasons to move to Maine being because of less people, less humidity. And like this email this morning from a West Virginia real estate buyer, these are some additional concerns listed out in an email. Read on ….

“Hello,

My family and business have decided to move out of West Virginia. We chose WV 18 years ago because of its remote wilderness. We are a family of blacksmiths/artisans who specialize in forging hunting, kitchen, & historically themed knives, carved drinking horns, & other marketable art. We raise goats, hunt, fish, & generally attempt to live self- sufficiently.

We travel along the East Coast of the US to Scottish & other festivals for income. Unfortunately, WV has now removed all of their pollution controls, while introducing more toxic industry & soliciting toxic waste dumping from the surrounding region. Fracking is affecting the wells & new pipelines are coming in nearby. (One of them recently exploded & was on national news.) The fish are toxic, & the deer are dying of strange diseases that are chemically induced. Cancer rates are rising quickly, & part of the local construction boom is to build cancer clinics. I don’t want my 2 young grandkids to die of cancer.

We are getting out of here.

I’m just starting to research where to go that is conducive to our lifestyle & preferences. 

We’re looking for acreage, not too huge, but enough to set up our homestead, workshop, forge, & run a small goat herd & garden. Road accessibility, well, & power would be necessary. We don’t want any nearby power plants, toxic industry, pipelines, mining, gas or oil drilling, or runoff that might affect our health, nor that of the local wildlife that we would eat. We don’t want wind farms within visibility or earshot. No giant power lines either.

We prefer to not be downstream from a large dam, nor to be in a flood zone. We don’t want to be in an area prone to wildfires. We don’t care about having TV or shopping malls although cell phone/internet signal would be necessary to run our business. We home school the grand kids. A nearby town would be good so they can go to the library & 4H club & etc. Emergency medical services within half an hour or so, & a bigger hospital within about 2 hours drive would be ideal.

Our business is conducive to having a small tourist-oriented specialty store as well. We are nice, friendly, down to earth, functional folks with skills. We’re independent thinkers, not fanatical in any direction.

If we can find something suitable, our chiropractor’s family wants to move also, with similar criteria. We would like to make this transition within the next few years. 

If you can help us toward this, please let me know.

Thanks so much!”

Folks seek out Maine’s fresh air, clean water and lower population because where they live now it lacks all three. Space, freedom to get away from dinky plots of land all walled in with spite fences and legal squabbles. To get away from the high traffic and even higher cost of living with all the layers of players that push and pull the permit regulation levers.

Cool off, beat the humidity heat. Hit the Maine waterfront.

Sit a spell on an open or screened porch with a summer breeze. Dig out the big air circulating fans, lift and tuck in the air condition with a careful heave ho. Into the best window in the Maine home for comfort, relief from the heat and humidity index. Reach into the ice box for a treat. Or down below for an iced tea, barley pop, a tall cool glass of ice cube loaded punch.

Maine is a great place to live if you can make a living. If you hold your horses on spending and make it easy does it slow as you go when you open your wallet or purse. If you learn how to work harder earlier in the day when it is hot and the farm hay has to be cut, conditioned, baled and stored in a barn facility. But make sure the moisture content of the hay is not too high to cause the fodder to heat up and burn down your Maine farm barn from spontaneous combustion.

A bolt of lighting from a crashing thunderstorm that cools the air dramatically. But means don’t be sitting in an aluminum canoe out in the middle of a Maine lake when those dark clouds swiftly roll overhead obscuring the sun. And the wind picks up considerable. Or don’t be unlucky enough to be out on the golf course swinging a metal club that only serves to attract a crackling bolt of lightning from overhead during the hottest stretch of a Maine summer. Have you been to Maine yet this summer and what are your plans for something new or an old familiar haunt to return to because it is a family tradition passed on to the younger generation?

How it works. How to reset and regroup. More on simple living in Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

207.532.6573 |  info@mooersrealty.com  | 

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA