One more bout with snow, then one wicked wet March and April, that’s the word from the Farmers’ Almanac.

Welcome to spring.

“We don’t talk about snow in April, if that’s any consolation to anybody,” Peter Geiger said Wednesday. He’s editor of the nearly 200-year-old book of weather, recipes and advice like the best days to can fruit or castrate farm animals, based in Lewiston.

The end of March is “the last time the ‘s’ word is used until we use the other ‘s’ word in summer,” Geiger said.

That other “s” word? Sultry. After a wet spring, he and the almanac call for a hot summer.

The predication had been for a snowy winter this past season.

As of Wednesday, Portland had recorded 99.4 inches of snowfall, according to James Brown, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Gray.

The snowiest winter on record, 1971, saw 141.5 inches.

“(99.4) still puts us in, just barely, 16th place” for snowiest, Brown said.

Their records go back to 1881.

Forecast for the first day of spring Thursday called for rain, tapering off late morning. The next bit of precipitation isn’t due until the middle of next week, Brown said. It’s too early to call snow or rain; that depends on temps.

Normal rainfall for March is 4.14 inches, he said. So far, with 3.74, the month is on pace to be just a little wetter than normal. But unlike the almanac, the weather service gives an equal chance of being above, at, or below normal for temps and precip for the next 90 days.

For fun, Marc Loiselle, a hydrogeologist at the Maine Geological Survey who keeps track of water in snow, started an online chart in September that loosely pitted the National Weather Service’s winter forecast against that of the Farmers’ Alamanc.

“Precipitation-wise, they (the almanac) were certainly dead-on,” Loiselle said. “The weather service called the temperature and the Farmers’ Almanac called the precipitation.”

Geiger said the almanac, which relies on astronomy, sunspots and tidal activity and an elusive forecaster named Caleb Weatherbee, predicts nice spring weather arriving in May. A hot summer follows in late June.

“I think there’s going to be a couple hot stretches that it’ll be one of those summers you’ll wish a couple days it would snow,” Geiger said.

• Bugs

Black flies, ticks, lady bugs – little to no effect on populations, according to pest people at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

“Typically, you see a connection between mosquito numbers and wet springs,” said Clay Kirby.

More standing water, more skeeters.

• Gardening

Might push the planting start from early May to Memorial Day, but really, that’s a return to normal, said Mike Small, owner of Roak the Florist.

Breaking ground toward the end of May is “more like it used to be. I’ve had people ask April 15, where are your tomatoes?” he said.

Give that trowel a few weeks’ rest.

• Indoor pursuits

Potentially lucrative, for some.

“The wetter it is, the better because when it rains, we do five times the business. I would welcome a wet spring,” said Jamie Grattelo, general manager of Joker’s in the Auburn Mall.