It’s been a roller coaster of weather conditions with ups and downs in temperatures since early May.
“Since 2014, the meteorological summer, with daytime highs of 20 Celsius or higher most of the time, has started every year in the Chemainus Valley by early- or mid-May,” noted Chemainus’ Chris Carss, a volunteer weather observer/recorder for Environment Canada.
“This year, the warm weather arrived on May 3, no less than seven weeks before the summer solstice. The last two days of the month saw a temporary return to spring conditions that gave us an unusually late extreme minimum temperature for the month. The cooler conditions lasted into the first half of June before yielding again to summer weather that should now last until at least September.”
The mean maximum temperature for May was 20.9 degrees Celsius, up from the normal of 18.1 C. The mean minimum of 11.2 C was also up substantially from the normal of 8.9 C.
The extreme maximum temperature for the month was 27.0 C on May 13 and 14, rivalling the current temperatures we’ve started experiencing in mid-June. The extreme minimum was 7.0 C on May 30.
The number of days with mostly or partly sunny conditions in May was 17, four more than the normal of 13.
Of the 14 mostly cloudy days, precipitation occurred on only seven. The normal number of days with precipitation is 11.
Total rainfall for the month measured only 10.2 millimetres. The normal is five times that amount at 50.9 mm.