With the air temperature averaging at 20.3˚C, the sea temperature averaging at 19.3˚C and around nine hours of daily sunshine, May weather was generally pleasant, heralding summer’s imminent arrival, the Meteorological Office said.
The last weekend of the month was particularly summery, with the 25th of May enjoying a maximum of 12.9 hours of sunshine and the air temperature rocketing to the month’s highest maximum of 28.5˚C two days later. On the other hand, the lowest minimum temperature dropped to 12.8˚C on the first Sunday of the month.
While May was steeped in 279.6 hours of sunshine, this total was 19.5 hours less than the quota for this time of year. With no sunshine recorded, the second day was the month’s dullest. This was followed by another gloomy day, on which the sun shone for a fleeting 0.2 hours and a maximum gust of 35 knots blowing from a south-west by west direction was recorded.
May was generally windier than expected, with the wind speed averaging at 9.4 knots rather than the 30-year climate mean of 8.6 knots.
During the month, 5.4mm of precipitation were measured, with dew collected on three separate days contributing to this total. In addition to this, two thunderstorms were reported by the Meteorological Office on the 19th and the 20th of May.
While fog was observed on three different days, mist was reported on several days throughout the month of May.