Article: THE SUMMER THAT WASN'T HAMPTON ROADS IS SOGGY, TOURISM IS ALL WET, CROPS ARE SOAKED - AND ALL THAT WITHOUT HURRICANES.(FRONT)

Gloom is better than doom.

Sure, this summer has been wetter, cooler and grayer than normal. But yards are in bloom, tap water is abundant and - thus far - no hurricanes have come a'calling.

``What we have is a very green state,'' said Patrick J. Michaels, Virginia's state climatologist. And anyone who has lived through the parched, dusty, brown, fink-on-your-creep-of-a-lawn-watering-neighbor days of too little rain knows, droughts are bad news.

Still, where Michaels sees green, some whose livelihoods depend on happy, tanning tourists are seeing red ink. And sun-seeking visitors have simply been left often to sing the blues. Or go to a museum.

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