May 2017 Commentary

The temperatures increased fairly consistently throughout May and with reasonable amounts of rain, after a dry start, it felt as if summer had arrived.

The dry spell lasted for the first ten days followed by ten days of rain while day-time temperatures were usually fairly warm and the nights could never be classified as cold. By the fourth week, most days were warm and some were hot so that when the humidity increased, several muggy nights were experienced.

The average temperature for May was 15.4C which is one and a half degrees above the average and makes it the warmest May since 2008. The rainfall totalled 85.6mm which made it a little above the average but not significantly.

Our Spring months of March, April and May have combined to make it the mildest Spring for at least a decade while the rainfall has been just below the average after a relatively dry winter.

Several local people have commented that no sooner have they cut their grass than it appears to need cutting again.

The flow of water from St. Augustine's Well has certainly stopped flowing much earlier than usual and the pond is already looking rather messy.

Philip Spray