The early May figures (1st – 27 May) show it has been a wet month over all, typified by cool, showery conditions, although there have been some drier interludes during the second half of the month.
May rainfall anomaly 1981-2010
Maximum temperatures have been around 2 °C below average for many western counties, and lower than this in northwest Scotland. However, apart from a frost in many places on the 1st (Tulloch Bridge -5.6 °C), cloud-cover has resulted in minimum temperatures broadly holding up at around the seasonal average in England and Wales, and only around a degree below elsewhere.
May temperature anomaly 1981-2010
The unsettled weather has led to above average rainfall totals for many places, the main exceptions being in eastern Scotland and much of southern and eastern England. A few spots have had around twice the monthly average.
Unsurprisingly, given the unsettled conditions, most places have had slightly less sunshine than would have been expected.
Conditions look rather unsettled for the first few days of June, but high pressure is expected to build through the latter part of next week, bringing drier and warmer weather for much of the UK.
| Mean Temperature | Sunshine hours | Rainfall | ||||
| 1-27 May 2015 |
Actual | Diff to Avg | Actual | % of Avg | Actual | % of Avg |
| degC | degC | hours | % | mm | % | |
| UK | 9.6 | -0.8 | 148.7 | 80 | 91.7 | 131 |
| England | 10.8 | -0.5 | 157.6 | 83 | 66.5 | 114 |
| Wales | 9.8 | -0.8 | 136.6 | 73 | 110.4 | 128 |
| Scotland | 7.6 | -1.2 | 143.3 | 80 | 126.2 | 149 |
| N Ireland | 9.3 | -0.9 | 114.1 | 63 | 103.3 | 142 |
I can’t disagree with your statistics, but I think your headline is a little over the top, especially the further south you live in the country. I think I would have qualified it a little: “A cool and wet May, especially in the north”. A bit more wordy, and not as punchy, but a little more accurate overall.
http://wp.me/3yVic
Maximum temperatures have been around 2 °C below average …
Do I detect some bias?
If it had been 2 °C above average … you would have reported it as “the warmest year since …”
(And yes it’s been cold, our hedge came out about 10 days later than last year)
Reblogged this on the WeatherAction News Blog and commented:
A tale of two halves. Been average and often pleasant in the southern half of England shown by the whites on the two maps.