For New Yorkers, the silver lining on all those dark clouds hanging above was the possibility that this October would amount to something special: It would break the record for the wettest month – not just the soggiest October, but the most thoroughly drenched month in the city’s recorded history.

If meteorologists are right, as they sometimes are, this month’s precipitation total will fall just a dripping whisker short of the amount of rain dumped on the city in September 1882.

By early evening yesterday, 1.25 inches had fallen in Central Park, according to the automated tipping-bucket gauging mechanism in Belvedere Castle, which reports data to the National Weather Service.

The rain pushed this month’s total to 16.71 inches, a little more than one tenth of an inch short of the all-time city record of 16.85 inches. It’s already the rainiest October on record, and the city’s second-rainiest month on record.

Forecasters at the National Weather Service in Upton, N.Y., aren’t predicting any more rain for the remainder of the month. Just clouds. “It’s probably just going to miss it,” the weather service’s Michael Wyllie said.

Such second-place status in the history books is cold comfort for city residents who, while not having had to endure anything remotely as destructive as the recent hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast and Florida, have had to cope with a month of irritations like stepping on soupy newspaper fragments plastered on sidewalks or standing in packed subway cars that smell like soggy house pets.

The lack of sunshine has had health specialists warning about the effects of bad weather on mental health. Henry Chung, an assistant vice president of student health at New York University and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry, said studies have shown that suicide rates are higher in regions that receive little sunlight. Stretches of rainy, gloomy days, he said, can disrupt sleep cycles by preventing the body’s natural circadian clock from resetting.

When the sun returned two weekends ago, New Yorkers spilled out onto the parks and promenades, like the frolicking children described by Ray Bradbury in his short story “All Summer in a Day,” set on a planet where the sun shines once every seven years.

Keeping people inside, the rain also depressed business for many city merchants. An employee at EZ Tanning in Manhattan said the high-end salon had experienced a 50% decline in customers. Outdoor fruit vendors missed more than a week of business. Dry cleaners double-bagged clothes but couldn’t attract customers during rainy periods.

Some businesses, however, have prospered throughout it all. Petaholics, a four-year-old Manhattan dog-walking and-sitting business, has seen a surge in business, said the owner, Jordan Kaplan. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls from people on Friday night who don’t want to walk their dogs,” he said. Customers pay a $5 premium when it’s raining, he said. The owners usually supply raincoats for their pets and towels in their apartments to dry off the animals.

Taxi drivers have had to contend with treacherous road conditions, slowing them down and forcing them to consume more gas. “The stress levels of the job just go through the roof, Biju Mathew, a member of the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance and author of the book “Taxi! Cabs and Capitalism in New York City,” said.

On rainy days, he said, business collapses soon after rush hour. More cars are returning to garages with scratches, and drivers are warning each other about the dangers of accelerating hard out of an intersection.

The stress doesn’t ease when they call home. “Many of the drivers in this rain are dealing with the fact that there’s a huge catastrophe in Pakistan,” Mr. Mathew said, referring to this month’s major earthquake, which killed tens of thousands.

One hundred twenty-three years ago, New Yorkers faced similar aggravations.

According to an article in the New York Times from that time, “Walking along streets became a penance in which few indulged, riding was curtailed to the smallest of proportions, and an embargo was laid on trade that was very embarrassing.”

It continued, “Umbrellas were useless and most of the thin rubber over garments proved of little more service in excluding the drenching, penetrating streams which hit the wayfarer from above and below, and, for that matter, in front and behind as well.”

The article was headlined, “A Very Heavy Rain-Storm.”

This month’s rain total, most of it owing to an eight-day stretch between October 7 and October 14, followed one of the driest Septembers in the books and a summer with near drought conditions. The city’s reservoir levels have swung from 12 percentage points below normal to more than seven points above normal in just over two weeks.

Meteorologists at the weather center attribute the high volume of rain to a cold front that became stationary while a series of low-pressure areas rode along, bringing up moisture from the south. For those who have been warning about the effects of global warning on the city, New York’s manic weather patterns are a source of vindication, proof that the climate would get go berserk just like they said it would.

“We are certainly not running around high-fiving each other,” said Bill Chameides, chief scientist for Environmental Defense, whose central offices are located on Park Avenue South. “We’re becoming more convinced that we are on the right side of this issue.” He did say that it’s impossible to determine whether a single meteorological episode could be blamed on global warming.

It’s been six years since Environmental Defense drew headlines when it released a 40-page report with paradoxical predictions about New York’s vulnerability to global warming. By the year 2100, it forecasted, the city would be confronted with a doomsday-like scenario of ferocious storms and droughts that would lead to coastal flooding or emergency demands for water.

The kind of weather New Yorkers have been experiencing is a “harbinger of what is likely to come as a result of global warming,” Mr. Chameides said.

“I never I said, ‘I told you so.'”