Well, it's no surprise really. After a generally fine and warm April, May has been quite a let-down.
An initial glance through the data for May reveals just how poor this month has actually been. Surprisingly though, despite feeling cold for most of the month, May has still been the warmest month of the year to date. Of course, normally this is what you'd expect, but after weeks of wrapping up against the cold it's hard to believe that May was still warmer than April - a mean of 9.8°C compared to 8.1°C last month. What's more revealing though is the maxima and minima: maximum temperatures in May were
down from 13.4°C in April to 13.3°C in May, but minimum temperatures were much warmer: up from 3.1°C to 6.4°C. It's these warmer nights that have contributed most to the overall figure increasing slightly. Compare May 2015 to typical values for May in our area though and you see that this year we're down by around 2°C, and this now makes more sense.
May this year has also been a windy month. I can't compare the wind stats to an average, but looking at the year to date, May has been windier than every other month except January. Wind speeds have averaged 6.3mph, and it's the regularity of the wind that's been notable (and from a cool direction too), rather than several short spells of high winds like we see in the winter.
We've also seen plenty of rain in May - the 85.8mm recorded again beaten only by January in 2015. Depending on which average values you compare to, this is between 1.3 and 2.25 times the normal monthly average, with 21 days being wet (around 15 is what we'd expect).
I think all this shows how varied our weather can be - glowing praise for the weather in one month can turn to gloom and despondency the next. So, with that thought in mind, perhaps it can switch back just as quickly? - we'll just have to wait and see.
