By Patrick Donges
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-970118.mp3
Pittsfield, MA – While the Berkshires have not seen the type of extreme weather currently being experienced by those in the Midwest and Southern states, the month of May has been primarily wet and overcast with short streaks of sunny, temperate days.
Bob Kilpatrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Albany forecast office, says the last week of the month will be more of the same.
"Later this week and this weekend really is not terribly encouraging; it looks like a very unsettled picture."
"You're going to be on the boundary between two different air masses. There may be some periods of relatively pleasant weather, but at the same time there are likely to be intervals of showers and maybe also some thunder storms especially on Thursday and Friday afternoon."
That could put a damper on weekend activities, including the Annie Sekle Companies' annual tent sale at the Pine Cone Hill outlet store in Pittsfield, scheduled for this Wednesday evening through Saturday.
Andrew Sedlock, director of sales at Pine Cone Hill and Dash and Albert Rugs, said he isn't worried about the rain.
"I think it's almost a good thing for us, with weather being a little bit off. You've got a house full of company, or you're up visiting for the weekend (and) you need something to do that isn't necessarily outdoor related, bicycles, barbeques, etc. So, it's a way of being outdoors because you're under the tent, but still being indoors."
"If it gets torrential and uncomfortable, we can certainly escort people into the outlet store"
Lauri Klefos, president and CEO of the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, said that this month's wet weather will not make or break the summer tourism season, in part because kids are still in school and people haven't made travel plans this early in the season.
"The weather really makes an important difference for tourism in June. So it's early yet to panic."
"If there's a time for us to have rainy weather it's now. It's building great green leaves and beautiful flowers and all those things we need for June."
Klefos cited events held earlier this month under sunny skies that drew visitors, including the baby animals program at Hancock Shaker Village.
Some vendors at Pittsfield's first Third Thursday street festival of the season, held last week, did start packing in their wares as rain began around 8 p.m. Here's Klefos.
"I think a lot of events that schedule time in May are looking just to kick off the season a little bit early. Because of what we have in the Berkshires we don't worry about a little stretch of rainy weather."
"Rainy days are helpful to museums, they're helpful to theaters, (and) they're helpful to shopping. All of those places, when it's not a beautiful sunny day, they all see the benefit."
One of the places expected to benefit from the weather is Pittsfield's Berkshire Museum, which announced last week that their 250 seat "Little Cinema" art-house theater has been upgraded with state of the art projection equipment.
For the first time in its 65 year history, the theater will move from a seasonal schedule to year-round presentation of two films per day and stream bi-weekly high-definition opera and ballet performances. Jeremy Goodwin is the communications director at the museum.
"One thing we have heard from our patrons is, Hey, we still want to see good movies even when it's snowing out."
"Any one room movie house you'll tend to find that they can show one different title per week because of the mechanics of having to change the films over. By purchasing a high-def digital projector and entering into an agreement with a digital distributor, we're now able to supplement that once a weekly 33 millimeter film with digital films that are arriving over the internet."
As for the rain, Goodwin said
"If anything we see our attendance numbers increase when there's weather that isn't so friendly to the outdoor activities."