MANCHESTER, N.H. – Three inches and counting.

New Hampshire needs only three more inches of precipitation to make 2005 the wettest year on record. The year already is the second wettest on record.

As of Tuesday, 51.74 inches of rain and its equivalent in snow had been recorded in Concord, where records go back earlier than for any other part of the state. Only in 1888 was there more precipitation – 54.33 inches.

“The record is seriously going to be challenged this year,” said Tom Hawley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The total for Portland, 59.11 inches following Tuesday’s storm, was nearly 71/2 inches more than in Concord. But so far, 2005 is only the fifth-wettest year on record in Maine’s largest city.

“The record is 66.33 inches, in 1983,” said Steve Capriola of the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. “We’d need 7.22 inches to tie it.”

Bangor reported 2.71 inches of rain from Tuesday’s storm and now has seen 54 inches of precipitation this year, more than 19 inches above the average.

As it stands right now, 2005 is the third wettest year on record for the Bangor area, with more than a month to go. The most precipitation occurred in 1983, when 65″ inches fell in Bangor.

Much of the region’s rain fell last month – a record 141/2 inches in New Hampshire. Seven deaths were blamed on the flooding that resulted. Heavy snowfalls in February and March, as well as a wet spring, also helped boost the total, Hawley said.

While record-keepers may get excited, residents say they are getting tired of pumping out their basements.

“It’s terrible, it’s been awful,” said Manchester resident Kim High. Flooding forced her son out of his basement bedroom and caused $1,000 damage during two days of heavy rains in October. “It just wouldn’t stop.”

State geologist David Wunsch said the good news is that few wells are at risk of running dry. But the rain and overcast skies also have created perfect conditions for fungal diseases that attacked maple, ash and oak trees.

Cheryl Smith, a plant health specialist with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, said the most noticeable was tar spot, a quarter-sized fungus that attacks maples.

“For plant pathologists, it’s been a good year. For a grower, not a good year,” she said.

For landscapers, it meant more mowing and less raking this fall. Joe Gauci, of Joe Gauci Landscaping, said his crews were cutting grass when they should have been raking leaves, and raking late into the year.

“The biggest thing rain does for my business, it keeps us mowing,” Gauci said. But it also forced him to redo about half of his hydroseed projects after rain washed away the grass seed.

The real trouble may come in the spring when the snow melts. Wunsch said groundwater levels, which rose 2.76 feet in October, already are high. One state-monitored well in New London rose 8.8 feet. Changes usually are measured in inches.

Wunsch said the saturated ground may pose problems in the spring, depending on how quickly the snow melts. Drivers and road crews also can expect plenty of frost heaves.