Over the past year on the Vineyard, there was plenty of wind, storms for almost every season and so much summer sun there was a concern about drought.

A big ocean storm in April opened the barrier beach at Norton Point to the ocean. A northeaster on Valentine’s Day and another last month with near-hurricane winds kept reminding Vineyarders the ocean can get nasty.

In other words, it was another classic year of variable New England weather on the Island.

While huge weather systems around the world may be showing the effects of long-term global warming, state climatologist David Taylor said New England got a typical year. He has over 100 years of weather data to prove it.

“The general public just can’t get used to the changes,” Mr. Taylor said.

The biggest suspect in this year’s Vineyard weather is La Niña, the opposite of El Nino. LaNiña is when a large portion of the Pacific Ocean gets unusually cold. The impact stretches across the northern hemisphere.

“It tended to make the northern edge of the country more cold and stormy,” Mr. Taylor said. “It also caused extremes. The state of Georgia has undergone its driest season ever.”

To the surprise of meteorologists, there were fewer Atlantic tropical storms this summer than expected, though it only took one tropical storm, the remnants of Hurricane Noel, to dump more than 2.6 inches of rain and deliver near-hurricane winds on the Vineyard on Saturday, Nov. 3.

La Niña played a heavy hand in Vineyard’s dry weather during the summer, Mr. Taylor said, and also played a part in the snowfall amounts in Boston.

“Boston needs one more inch of snow to be the snowiest winter of all time,” Mr. Taylor said.

But it was ho-hum for the Vineyard when it comes to snow. The total snowfall for Martha’s Vineyard this year so far is 11 inches, well below the annual average of 25 inches.

Brides loved the weather in 2007, because it was so sunny, but Island cows didn’t. Cows like to chew on fresh grass and hay in the summer, but didn’t get the chance.

“Brides were thrilled,” said Lynn Buckmaster-Irwin, a wedding consultant and owner of Weddings on the Vineyard, given tha most weekends were sunny.

“The weather was fine. August was wonderful, fabulous,” she said.

It was a dry summer but not the driest, according to Vineyard farmer Elisha Smith.

“The summer of 1958 was the driest,” Mr. Smith said. “We planted our corn in April, in the field at Katama, and it didn’t sprout until September.”

Mr. Smith has a farm in Oak Bluffs and cuts hay in Chilmark and Edgartown.

“I had to feed the cows after the tenth of June, there just wasn’t any hay,” he said of 2007. “It was one of the driest summers I remember. I got the first cutting of hay in the spring and then nothing grew after that.”

Fortunately, he said, “the chickens, they kept on laying.”

Jim Athearn, owner of Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown, and his farm hands put a lot of attention into irrigating. There were winners and losers.

Though grass suffered, he said, “we had healthier tomatoes and pumpkins. The pumpkins were of higher quality and longer lasting into the fall. We didn’t have the problem with fungus on pumpkins we’ve had before.

“When it rained, it may have been good for the statistics but it didn’t wet the earth much,” Mr. Athearn said.

Sweetened Water Pond, the little pond on the south side of the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road, in Edgartown, was completely dry by the end of the summer. Mr. Athearn said: “It was once dry when I was a kid.” Rainfall in the last two months has started to recharge the pond.

June was the driest month of the year on the Island with .97 inches. An average June produces 2.65 inches of rain.

August came in second as the driest month in the year with a total rainfall of 1.11 inches, a quarter of the average of 4.43 inches.

July was close to average with a total of 2.46 inches.

Trees in West Tisbury and in parts of the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest suffered from the dryness and tree wardens paid close attention. But it wasn’t only the weather.

Forest manager John Varkonda said: “It is a combination of trees being defoliated by moths earlier in the year that created problems during the summer.”

It was bad enough that the trees lost their leaves in spring when there was rainfall, but when it was time to grow their second generation of leaves there was no moisture in the ground. Trees along the Old County Road in West Tisbury were among the most afflicted.

November was the wettest month of the year on the Island with 7.09 inches. As of yesterday, December’s total rainfall was five inches and with forecasters predicting more rain in the days ahead, the amount of rainfall is still growing.

While the East Coast cities got cooked on hot days this past summer, the Vineyard never made it to 90 degrees, not even once.

The two hottest days of the year on the Island came back to back: Thursday, August 2 and Friday, August 3 when the high for the day reached 89 degrees. Nineteen days in August reached 80 degrees or higher. The average temperature for the month was 71.7 or three degrees above normal.

When it came to temperatures, Mr. Athearn was pleased with the start of the growing season. “We didn’t have a cold spring like we often get. June wasn’t wicked cold,” he said.

The coldest day of the year was Saturday, Jan. 27 when the temperature bottomed out once to single digits and only barely. The lowest temperature of the year was 9 degrees.

The groundwater got all the rainfall it needed. Bill Wilcox, water resource planner for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, goes out and measures the height of the water table, the groundwater during the year.

One of his favorite wells is in the center of the Island in the state forest.

“From January through September the well reflected an above-average height for all of those months,” Mr. Wilcox said. The height of the groundwater was due to an abundance of rainfall the previous year.

“We had a surplus of water in 2006 so the water tables were already high,” Mr. Wilcox said. “It was a good two feet above average and last December it was a good foot above normal.”

As this year progressed the groundwater table didn’t start to drop into the negative numbers until October. “The dry weather finally caught up with us,” he said.

However, the impact of plenty of rainfall at this end of the year has had a positive influence. “The water table usually lags behind the rainfall, by a matter of months,” Mr. Wilcox said.

Winter is typically good for the water table. With plants not growing, all the rain and melted snow make it into the ground to recharge the aquifer.

Mr. Taylor, the climatologist, said: “Some people get off on climate change. There have been dry summers. In 1947 and 1948 we had a very dry October and then there were fires in Maine.”

The pendulum of weather swings a lot in New England. But over time, Mr. Taylor said: “Mother Nature likes to balance her checkbook.”