There were a lot of ups and downs through the month of May in our area. From severe weather and tornadoes, to crazy high pollen counts, and a lot of bouncing around temperature wise. Hang in there, we are getting closer to the end of tornado season. Now that May is over however, let's take a look back on how the month compared to what we normally see for the month of May.
Here is what NOAA had predicted for the month of May that was put out in mid-April:
They predicted equal chances for above or below normal temperatures in our region.
Image: NOAA
They also predicted a slightly greater chance of seeing above normal rainfall for May in our area.
Image: NOAA
Before I (Bryce) reveal how it compared what do you think? Do you think we ended up above normal for temperatures or below? What about rain? Do you think we had a monsoon-like month, or do you feel like you had to water your grass every other day?
Now let's look at the data:
Temperatures
For the month of May this year, Louisville averaged a temperature of 66.8°. If you're like "huh"?, that's because that number is the average of both high and low temperatures through the month. On average, we even out at 68.3°. So, based on high and low temperatures combined, the month of May ended up being 1.5° below normal!
What most of you are probably more curious about of course is high temperatures because that's when most of us are outside with plans. Well, our average high temperature for this last May was 75.2°. Typically, we even out with an average high temperature of 77.8°. So based on high temperatures last month, we ended the month 2.6° below normal!
Did you get that part right? Let's try the next part...rain!
Precipitation
We are typically still seeing the "April showers" lead into May in our area as may ends up with an average of 5.18" of rain. That means on average May is the wettest month of the entire year!
So what about this May? Louisville ended up with 4.33" of rain, making this last month 0.85" below normal for rainfall! That's a pretty big difference compared to what we normally see. When you take a closer look at last month as a whole, we only had 2.84" of rain leading up to May 30th before nearly 1.5" fell on that day alone! That means that 34% of May's rainfall fell on May 30th (that was last Friday!)
