TAUNTON, Mass. (AP) – Driving rain and strong winds Tuesday morning were merely a prelude to the nor’easter bearing down on the region, forecasters said, as damp, frigid weather continued to plague New England with the unofficial start to summer just days away.

Officials at the National Weather Service in Taunton said the nor’easter expected to arrive late Tuesday or early Wednesday would bring winds of up to 60 mph along the coast. The storm could also drop 1 to 2 inches of rain and bring coastal flooding with the early morning high tide on Wednesday.

Coming on the heels of several days of steady rain and skein of wet weekends, residents and business owners weren’t taking the news well. Golf courses and nurseries, which rely on a strong spring, have been particularly hard hit.

“Financially, things are down because of the weather,” Susan Wallingford, manager of Echobrook Nurseries in Worcester, told the Telegram & Gazette. “It feels like we live in Washington.”

The National Weather Service warned people to be prepared for power outages during the height of the storm, from Tuesday evening through Wednesday morning.

Nearly 2,000 workers are striking at NStar, the leading eastern Massachusetts provider of electricity, but a company spokesman said it should be able to handle any power outages, though response times may be slower. NStar spokesman Michael Durand said management will be working overtime and the company will hire contract workers.

“We continue to ask for our customers’ patience,” Durand told The Standard-Times of New Bedford.

Besides the rain, this has been the third coldest May on record, National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Nocera said. The normal average temperature for May in Boston is 58.5 degrees. This month’s average has been 51.4, he said.

On the tails of the nor’easter, forecasters predicted, temperatures should climb into the high 60s, but the threat of rain will persist through Sunday. There’s some hope for the sun to break through on Monday, Memorial Day, but that’s a long way off, the weather service cautioned.

“It’s a gloomy month,” meteorologist Alan Dunham said. “We have this situation with low pressure in the upper atmosphere; it makes the clouds form up.”