Downpours in May are now following a 30 year trend of making it a very wet month

There were only 12 dry days in May, which adds to a long-term trend of an increasing number of wet days in the month, reports Eric Gilbert, Marlborough’s own weatherman.

The weather in the month came in three distinct parts, he reveals.  The first 10 days were wet, beginning with the wettest day of the month on May Day with 16.3mm.  From May 11 to 19 temperatures rose into the twenties with a high of 25.4C on the May 19, and all with very little rain.

And then there were five consecutive dry days.

But from May 20 low pressure settled over the UK bringing unsettled weather with much rain and depressed temperatures, the thermometer struggling to reach 13.1C on May 28 and 13.4C on May 23.

“The total rainfall was 105.5mm, which is 181 per cent of the 30-year average or an extra 47.2mm,” Mr Gilbert told Marlborough News Online.  “There were only 12 dry days. The number of wet days, which are classed as daily precipitation equal to or more than 1mm, also totalled 12.

“It is interesting to see that over the past 30 years the trend for the number of wet days in May has been rising from around eight in the 1980s to 11, on average, in recent years.”

Other highlights were the hail that fell on the May 6, a misty start to the day on May 16 and 17, thick fog greeting the morning of May 21 with a clap of thunder being heard on the following day.

As to Spring in general, Mr Gilbert adds:  “The total rainfall for the three months was 230mm, which is 130 per cent of the 30-year average or plus 53mm.  The record high spring rainfall was in the year 2000 when 279mm fell that contrasts markedly with just 65mm in 2011.

The mean temperature was 0.9C above the 30-year average being the fourth warmest after 2011, 2007 and fractionally below the mean in 1999.  Thankfully, spring 2014 was 3C above the mean for the very cool spring of 2013.”