May brought the arrival of summer weather early in the month for the third year in a row and for the fourth time in five years in the Chemainus Valley.
“Temperatures ran about 2C above normal for most of the month,” noted Chemainus weather observer/recorder Chris Carss in his monthly recap. “The first daytime high of 20C came on the fifth, which was about a month earlier than the historical normal, but maybe bang on for what seems to be turning into the new normal as a result of global climate change.
“The month started very dry, but some unsettled weather returned intermittently for the second half of the month. However, as might be expected, it only gave us about half our normal rainfall for May because of its late arrival. Accordingly, most of the sunshine came during the dry first half of the month, but continued to show up frequently during the second half on the days it didn’t rain.”
Carss added the pattern of warm, but variable weather continued into early June with the expectation of a return to another dry spell around the seventh.
“This could be interrupted at about the middle of the month by a few days of showers,” he indicated. “Another return to warm and dry conditions is expected around June 20, just in time for the arrival of the astronomical summer.”
May’s total rainfall of 24.1 millimetres was a trickle compared to the normal of 50.9mm. Days of mostly or partly sunny conditions were way up to 20 from a normal of 13 days of sunshine.
The 11 mostly cloudy days yielded six with rainfall. There’s normally 11 days in May with rain or showers.
Temperature readings featured a mean maximum of 20.7C compared to the normal of 18.1C while the mean minimum of 10.8C climbed from the normal of 8.9C.
The monthly extreme maximum of 27.0C occurred on May 10 and the extreme minimum of 6.5C was recorded on May 1.