May 2011 Summary

Summary:
May 2011 was a rather non-descript month with around average mimimum and maximum temperatures.
It was another dry month, following April, however there were no long marked dry spells and despite the overall dryness, rain fell on a good number of days. This made for a rather cloudy month generally with only a few sunny days.

Temperature: Minimum:
Night time temperatures ranged from 6.6 degs C on the night of the 24th/25th, to 13.5 degs C on the night of the 5th/6th, giving an average minimum of 10.42 degs C, the highest for May since 2008.
Although a minimum of 6.6 degs is low for May, it was a lot higher than 4.0 degs C, which was recorded in May 2010.

Temperature: Maximum:
Daytime temperatures ranged from 13.0 degs C on the 3rd to 20.9 degs C on the 10th. This was the second lowest May maximum of the last eight, just 0.1 degree above the lowest, 20.8, in 2005.
This May saw only three days with a maximum above 20 degs C, equal to the number in 2006. Only 2005 and 2009 from the last eight Mays had less.
The average maximum temperature of this May, however, was 17.83 degs C, the highest since 2008 and around the average for the last eight Mays, which implies the lack of any very warm spells was counter to the low number, or absence, of any particularly cool spells as well.

Rainfall:
22.7 mm of rain fell during the month, which compares to 11.1 mm in April, and 20.2 mm for May 2010.
The individual wettest day was the 1st, specifically during the morning, when 10 mm of rain fell. As events turned out, this heavy rain amounted to almost half of the month's total in the first sixtieth of the month!
Despite low total rainfall, there were only 13 completely dry days, well down on April's 21, but only one less than May 2010.
The longest dry spell was just five days, from the 12th to the 16th, however only 3.2 mm of rain fell in total between the 12th and 29th.

Thunder:
No thunder was heard during the month.