The start to May will go down as the dreariest in recorded history for Blue Hills Observatory, with absolutely zero minutes of sun over the first five days, meteorologists said Sunday.

“It’s one of the darkest Mays ever,’’ said Don McCasland, program director at the Milton site. “For the first five days it was the darkest ever.’’

While sunny days expected this week will lighten the collective mood, McCasland noted that there was a silver lining to the miserable weather last week. The persistent wet weather will help protect plants and crops against the possibility of drought.

“For all the gloom that there was, it was actually a very, very good thing to have the light rain that we had almost every day,’’ said McCasland. “There are lots of benefits from an ecological point of view.’’

The grim weather also may portend a warmer and drier summer, according to McCasland. Though there’s no way to predict for sure, he said such a pattern has occurred in the past. The last time May got off to such a cloudy start was in 2012, with no sun for the first four days, and just 30 minutes on the fifth.

As if to make up for the past week’s onslaught of gray, the week ahead will be sunny and warm, with temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s. Thursday will be the hottest day of the week, as highs could reach 70 in Boston and up to 76 in parts of Central and Western Massachusetts, according to the National Weather Service.

Reenat Sinay can be reached at reenat.sinay@globe.com.