The UK in May
Mike Hulme on last month’s weather
DAYTIME TEMPERATURES
May was a month of two
halves with the first half being substantially warmer than the second. Nationwide average daytime temperature
reached 20ºC on the 14th, nearly 6ºC above the May average. By the late May Bank Holiday weekend,
temperatures had fallen to 1-2ºC below the average. When averaged over the month, however, temperatures were on the mild
side, the only exception being in parts of the midlands and east coast, for
example Skegness. Northern Ireland and
northwest England were relatively the warmest, reaching nearly 2ºC above their
monthly normal temperature. Year 2000
continues comfortably warmer than the long-term average.
RAINFALL
An unusual month for
rainfall with southeast England and eastern Scotland being exceptionally wet,
but the rest of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and western England being
average or drier than average. May was
also a month of two halves with regard to rainfall - the first 15 days recorded
less than 10mm nationwide, while the last 16 days recorded well over 50mm. Nationally, nearly 21mm of rain fell over
the late May Bank Holiday weekend, but locally these totals reached 50mm. The Channel Islands were exceptionally wet,
recording over 25% of their annual average rainfall during May alone.
SUNSHINE
As is often the case,
sunshine was inversely correlated with rainfall, with southeast England being
very dull especially during the second half of the month, while Scotland
enjoyed totals 30% or more above average.
Guernsey was the cloudiest location of the 20 monitored here - the first
time this has happened for over a decade.
Both May Bank Holiday Mondays were pleasantly sunny with, respectively,
8.6 and 9.8 hours nationwide. The year
so far has been sunny, wet and mild.
Dr Mike Hulme is a Research
Climatologist at the University of East Anglia
(more details at web
site: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/)
May 2000: Mild, wet and sunny
Daytime Temperature:
0.9°C above average; Rainfall:
28% above average; Sunshine:
17% above average.
[all average figures are
based on the 1951-80 average]
Mean monthly extremes:
Warmest Bournemouth 17.6°C
Sunniest Tiree 315
hours sun
Wettest Guernsey 180mm
Coldest Lerwick 11.0°C
Cloudiest Guernsey
162
hours sun
Driest Tiree 36mm