A Look Back at the Sixth Warmest May

By Russell Russ 

This May was a nice weather month. Nice, if you like warm temperatures with partly to mostly sunny skies. There were some wet days, but they were few and far between. May 2023 was also a very nice weather month. Two years in a row. Take it when you can get it. A special, non-weather-related highlight this month was the very visible aurora borealis (northern lights) during the evening of May 10. It was a spectacular show for those lucky enough to see it in person. It is exceedingly rare to see it so clearly and to such an extent in Connecticut. 

May’s low temperature of 33 degrees was observed on May 11. That is cold for May, but it was six degrees from a record low. The high of 85 was observed on May 22, two degrees shy of a record high. With an average monthly mean temperature of 58.9, it was 4.0 degrees above normal. Every month in 2024 has been above normal for monthly mean temperatures. Norfolk’s warmest May occurred in 2015 with a temperature of 61.8 degrees, the coldest was in 1967 with 46.8 degrees.

The total precipitation recorded for the month was 4.21 inches, 0.13 inch below normal. There were no severe weather conditions this month. There was one small thunderstorm on May 8 that produced 0.36 inch of rain. The big rainfall-producing days were May 27 with 0.84 inch and May 30 with 0.90 inch. Through May, the total precipitation for 2024 was 26.76 inches, 6.15 inches above normal. We are doing well in the precipitation department so far this year. Always good to have a buffer before we head into the typically dry summer months. Norfolk’s driest May was in 1980 with 1.31 inches, the wettest was in 1984 with 12.34 inches. 

There was no snowfall in May this year. In fact, the last wintry precipitation to fall in Norfolk came on April 6. One cannot write about snowfall in May without mentioning the Norfolk, and Connecticut, record 20.0 inches of May 1977. 

An early look at June’s weather through June 20 showed that temperatures were once again warmer than normal. June had some very nice early summer weather for the first half of the month. After June 17, temperatures really warmed up. June 19 and 20 both reached 90 degrees and both days set records for Norfolk. June likely will rank high for warmth. What really stood out was the lack of rain. With just 0.31 inch of rainfall through June 20, it ranked as the driest June on record. Rain and thunderstorms are in the forecast for the remainder of the month, but it seems likely that June, even with a little rain at month’s end, will rank very high as one of Norfolk’s driest Junes on record. Norfolk’s rainfall surplus will be taking a big hit in June. On the positive side, at least this June we so far have not had to deal with the Canadian and western states’ wildfire smoke that Norfolk and much of the country experienced last year. 

Weather observations are recorded by the Great Mountain Forest at Norfolk’s National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Observer Station, Norfolk 2SW.