A Pretty Normal May

Good news, once this rain clears today, the first weekend of June should stay dry though not sunny. But we can’t expect too much after all, it is June on the West Coast!

There has been a lot of concern about how cold and ugly the spring has been. The farmers were complaining about not being able to get their crops in and people were needing a little sunshine. It seemed like we were setting up for another bummer summer!

Literally days later, the sun came out and we had a number of days of very warm and wonderful weather!

Now weve turned back post-May Long Weekend to wet dreary weather. So what has May turned out like as far as “Normals” go? You might be surprised.

Our high for the month was 28C… Way better than the anemic 21C we barely got to last year. As far as averages go:

Normal Max/Min/Ave Temperatures for May: 17.7C/5.6C/11.7C

2012 Alberniweather Max/Min/Ave Temp for May: 17.1C/6.1C/11.6C

2011 Alberniweather Max/Min/Ave Temp for May: 15.1C/6.4C/10.4C

2008 Alberniweather Max Temp for May: 20.8C/8.0C/13.2C

As you can see, compared to the 1970-2000 climate normals from Environment Canada we were almost bang on normal. Our maximums were a full two degrees warmer than last year and our overall average a full degree warmer. We can thank those few days of summer weather we had for giving us that.

Isn’t it funny though how we perceive it as being so cold though when in fact it’s been quite normal for temperatures? Well, that why I also put in the values from 2008. We were way way warmer that year, and a number of other years in the mid 2000s as well. People have short and selective memories when it comes to the weather.

But i also think we humans dont give ourselves enough credit for out innate ability to detect and remember trends in the weather even if it’s just a ‘feeling’. Now this is totally my uneducated opinion but I think we were getting used to that warm weather of the past decade and we were adapting. The fact that we were getting used to temperatures far above what would be measured as Normal suggest that perhaps Normal is changing. I think instead of being Normal, 2011 and 2012 will in future be much more representative of Colder than normal temperatures brought on by La Nina and the cold East Pacific waters of a negative PDO. Normal will be something closer to 2008. And that has some big implications.

That finally brings me to rainfall. One would think a cooler spring would mean more rainfall. That does not appear to tell the whole story though. Here are the numbers:

Normal Precipitation for May: 75mm

2012 Alberniweather Precipitation for May: 37.8mm

2011 Alberniweather Precipitation for May: 63.5mm

2008 Alberniweather Precipitation for May: 18.8mm

As you can see we are way below normal for May rainfall. Even last May was significantly below normal and 2008 was bone dry.

As can be seen here, 2008, 2011 and we know the first half of 2012 were all La Nina periods which bring us dry conditions… It looks like El Niño and La Nina still control our rainfall amounts.

Hope you find this post interesting…