April showers brought the flowers, but May was parched.

Until Wednesday’s downpour at O’Hare International Airport, the city’s official observation site, Chicago was on track to record its second driest May ever. Instead it finished fourth.

Yet, the brief thunderstorm was isolated, which means many near the lakefront didn’t see a drop of rain.

Brett Borchardt, acting senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Chicago office, says it had been almost two months since O’Hare experienced a soaking rainfall. He noted that meteorological spring, which runs from March through May, was the ninth consecutive season with above normal temperatures. Borchardt likens the weather pattern with one we normally experience in midsummer due to the jet stream positioned “really far north in Canada, leaving us high and dry without weather systems,” he said.

Normally, Chicago gets about 4.5 inches of rain in May.

“Drought conditions are quickly developing,” he said. “Exasperating the quick drought development is the spring ‘green-up’ when plants suck up moisture from the ground to grow. We’ve started to notice that a real 4- and 8-inch soil moisture measurements are dropping fast, with corresponding drops in river streamflow rates.”

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Streamflow is just what organizers of the 18.5-mile Des Plaines River Canoe & Kayak Marathon lacked during the 66th annual event on May 21. In some parts, the water level was 2 feet — that’s 2 to 3 feet below ideal for a water race, said Jim Pechous, who scouted the river conditions prerace to make sure it was safe to traverse. He says the Des Plaines River can vary significantly in height since its dams were removed.

“There were no stretches so low that racers HAD to walk,” Al Pilgrim, race chair, wrote in an email to the Tribune. “But many chose to get out of the boat to avoid damage, then get back in. Two of our board members had to go a hardware store the night before the race to buy metal stakes and caution tape to establish a safe route through the area.”

Andrew Balfe, a manager at Gethsemane Garden Center, 5739 N. Clark St., Chicago, says water usage at the almost 40-year-old business has been about normal despite the absence of rain.

“Luckily, this drought is coming early in the year and the temperatures have remained mild for the most part,” he said. “We do have to keep a closer eye on our large display containers and on the island that we plant and maintain in the middle of Clark Street. As the temperatures rise, I anticipate having to use more water if the drought continues.”

Where some might see dollar signs when turning on their taps to keep landscaping lush, others see opportunity.

Ken McCormick, general manager at Belmont Golf Club in Downers Grove, which is the site of the first 18-hole course in the United States, says the dry weather has allowed plenty of playable days. He says the club is currently 20% up in green fees and revenue compared with last year and hasn’t had to raise prices.

Neither has Gethsemane. Balfe says the garden center has never marked up its plants and flowers due to weather conditions. He takes the aridity in stride.

“The lack of rainfall has been a blessing. Nobody likes to shop in the rain,” said Balfe. “We have not had to close early due to a spring storm and have had very few slow days due to rain. It also helps to spread out business more evenly so we have fewer ultra busy days due to people trying to either ‘beat’ the rain or make up for missed days due to bad weather.”

Tim Johnson, senior director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, says to keep an eye out for obvious signs that your vegetation is thirsty until consistent rainfall returns.

“Check the soil at the base of your plants to see how much soil moisture is present to guide you in determining whether to water,” he told the Tribune. “Plants show water stress with wilting foliage and foliage that turns an off color of green or yellow to brown when very dry.”

Johnson offered these tips and says additional information can be obtained from the Garden’s Plant Information Service:

• Check your soil: Don’t assume that your sprinkler system is providing the right amount of water. Monitoring the plants and the soil moisture will help provide the optimum amount of water for new garden plants.
• Recently installed perennials: Will benefit from an occasional deeper soaking with a hose while they are getting established.
• Young plants (installed last year and this spring): Give these priority. A layer of mulch will also help with water retention.
• Slightly older plants (2-3 years old): Go ahead and water them during dry periods like this.
• Established plants (More than 3 years old): No supplemental watering needed now.
• Trees and shrubs: (planted as balls and wrapped in burlap): Water with a hose at the base weekly to thoroughly moisten the root balls during the first one to two years of establishment. Don’t rely solely on a sprinkler system.
• Grass seed: Proper watering is critical to having success with seeding a lawn. It needs to be kept moist with frequent light watering of one to three times per day until it germinates in approximately two weeks. Letting it dry out during this time can dramatically reduce germination of the seed. A light layer of compost can help retain moisture.
• New sod: Water deeply to encourage rooting into the soil. New sod will start to turn an off-green color when it is too dry, and that is an early warning sign to check out the area. Once it turns mostly brown, it will need to be replaced.

Borchardt says our current streak of warm, dry days that wrap up meteorological spring is not a good indication of what our weather will be this summer — and they’ve already been interrupted with potential isolated thunderstorms.

“Patterns often change on a dime, and that can mean a flip from abnormally dry to abnormally wet when that change occurs in the summertime,” he said.

He cites the summer of 1992 — which followed the driest May on record — as an example. The rainfall total that summer was 8.68 inches, a little more than 3 inches below normal, but it doesn’t crack the Top 50 driest summers in Chicago history.

“One may think that summer must have been hot, but it was actually tied for the third coldest meteorological summer on record with an average temperature of around 67 degrees!” he said.

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NOAA forecasts the return of an El Nino weather pattern this year, but Borchardt says we won’t feel its effects until the fall or winter. Until then, the outlook offers an above normal probability that rain will soon return. So enjoy these sunny, dry days while they last.

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krumore@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @rumormill