PORTLAND – Mainers returning to work Monday after another rainy weekend could be forgiven for feeling a little blue: Even though the days are getting longer, there was less sunlight in April than in the month before because of unrelenting rain.

“Hopefully we’ll improve here in May because this is pretty pathetic,” said Tom Hawley, meteorologist from the National Weather Service.

Last weekend marked the third consecutive weekend washout during what has become an extended rainy spell. Across Maine, many communities recorded double the average rainfall in April, enough to cancel Little League games and backyard cookouts.

In April, there were 13,819 minutes of sunlight, or 57 percent of what’s possible, compared to 15,575 minutes of sunlight in March, Hawley said.

May hasn’t started off much better with no sunlight over the weekend, and only 40 percent of available sunlight recorded through Sunday, he said.

Sunlight is measured by an instrument on the roof of the National Weather Service’s office in Gray. It generally takes the same amount of energy needed to produce a shadow for sunlight to be recorded by the device, Hawley said.

Elizabeth Ng of Brunswick needed no instruments to tell her about the rainy, cloudy weather. She was further annoyed to learn Monday that her softball game scheduled for that night was canceled because of standing water on the field.

“Everyone has had enough of it,” she said. “We’d all like to see some sun.”

In addition to affecting recreation, rain also caused consternation for landscapers, builders and others who work outdoors.

In Rockport, Farley & Sons landscaping has fallen behind schedule because of rain that washed away freshly seeded gardens and has left the ground too soggy for heavy equipment, said Gretchen Richards of Hoboken Gardens, a subsidiary.

At Hoboken Gardens, the lack of sunlight delayed the growth of greenhouse perennials waiting to be purchased and planted in gardens, Richards said.

One business that hasn’t suffered is Portland’s Tanorama, which has been doing a steady business with people seeking out some light from a tanning bed. “We have a lot of people who come in and need to get their dose of sunshine,” said Bob Close, the owner.

All of those cloudy days may set people into a temporary funk, but it’s not enough to cause full-blown clinical depression associated with seasonal affective disorder, said Andrew Loman, a licensed clinical social worker at Spring Harbor Hospital.

“It’s not really depression. It’s just people being bugged by the fact that the weather is not great and the sun is not out,” Loman said.

And help is on the way. The National Weather Service predicts some sunny weather over the next couple of days, with highs in the 60s and 70s.