May 2019 is in the books and went down as very warm and somewhat wet.
Temperatures started relatively normal for the beginning of the month, but a mid-month heat ridge upped the temperatures and made it feel a lot more like summer instead of late spring. Afternoon highs started reaching the upper 80s and lower 90s on the 22nd of the month and didn’t really cool until the last two days.
Morning lows only dipped to the 60s most of the month and 10 days out of the month saw lows at or above 65 degrees. Three daily lows this May were 70 degrees or warmer; that’s rare. We’ve only had 7 Mays in recorded history that have had three or more 70° (or higher) morning lows. The morning low of 71 degrees on the 25th of May was a record warm morning low. Due to the warmer than average highs and lows, we ended with a mean temperature of 69.0 degrees. That’s nearly 5 degrees above average for the month and puts 2019 as the 10
th warmest May on record.
Precipitation ran low this month when compared to normal. May is typically one of the wettest months of the year normally yielding us 5.26” of rain. This month ended with 4.37” of rainfall which is about nine-tenths of an inch below normal. The wettest day this May was 1.21” and occurred with the thunderstorms on May 26th. Most of the drier than normal weather can be blamed on the persistent heat ridge that kept our summer-like heat towards the end of the month. That ridge also kept many of the storms away from us, leading to drier than normal conditions.
