May 2011 day by day

May 5th: The wildfires have continued in places, especially in parts of Wales, and the Peak District. It has remained generally dry for most away from the far west & north west, where West Freugh (Dumfries & Galloway) saw 24mm in the 12 hours from 06-18Z yesterday. Maximum temperatures so far have been about 3-4C above average across England & Wales & locally more like 5C but there have been some notably chilly nights. The coming weekend looks set to see some warmer weather though night & day with as high as 25C likely in parts of the south & SE, some 8-9C above the daytime average but outbreaks of thundery showers as well.

May 6th-7th A busy few days weatherwise and wetter generally for many than it has been for some time, with some areas seeing about 15-25mm in the period, which has helped dampen down some of the smouldering wildfires about still. However some areas, more especially in the east saw virtually nothing A cold night on the 6th too, Altnaharra (Sutherland) saw as low as -6.3C on the 6th, very likely the coldest temperature of the month. It was however mainly notable for being quite warm in places over the last few days, St James Park in central London seeing 25.3C on the 6th, then Weybourne (on the Norfolk coast) 25.4C as well on the 7th, some 9-10C above average, perhaps likely to be the warmest temperature of the month, with the very warm weather confined to the far east. It was still muggy elsewhere though and various areas saw thunderstorms develop with sme locally torrential rain and hail as well. The 6th saw thunderstorms move up & inland through the Channel and in particular a gust front on the Isle of Wight before a storm saw the Needles lighthouse report a gust of 81mph. Boscombe Down (Willts) saw 29mm fall in the 24 hours to 21Z on the 7th. Southern Scotland was wet also, in the 48 hours to 06Z on the 8th Eskdalemuir (Dumfries & Galloway) saw 48mm fall. It looks set to be cooler, though rather dry in the south still during the next week.  

May 10th- it continued warm but not especially so today in the east and SE with Cromer (Norfolk) seeing 22.5C on the 9th & Swanscombe (Kent) seeing 22.4C on the 10th.  

May 15th The second week of May saw a rather uneventful period but it was cooler & a little more unsettled than much of the first for most western parts with a rather deep low pressure out to the west in the Atlantic but despite the scattered heavy showers in the north & west with some localised thunder, parts of the south & east remain resolutely dry and it's been sunnier than average everywhere except the SW of England & Wales though. Still warm for May overall as well, with temperatures about 2.5C above average across England & Wales, which is still substantially warmer than expected. Whilst Scotland and NW England have been pretty wet, there's little rain in sight for much of the south & east again in the next week again, as ridges of high pressure dominate the weather pattern here, and so the ground will continue to dry out but expect a few chilly nights with localised ground grosts. 

May 20th- two thirds of the way through the month and it has been less warm recently and less settled for many in the north but still very dry in the south. The rainfall pattern has seen some spectacular differences NW/SE .. the west half of Scotland has seen twice its expected rainfall so far in May whilst East Anglia has seen just a quarter. Temperatures are about 2C above the average still overall across England.  

May 22nd- the third week was also relatively uneventful weatherwise . The final week looks likely to see much less settled weather, especially in the north, this lasting right through into the Bank Holiday weekend. The 23rd, in particular, Monday may see a developing storm moving through the north of the country as an unseasonally deep area of low pressure develops here with a risk of winds gusting to 75mph in exposed spots in western & Highland Scotland and a lot of rain as well in these areas.  

May 23rd: In what will likely be the key weather event of May, a deep low ran across the north of Scotland and deepened to 974mb. It carried an exceptionally strong gradient for May on its southern side and the associated strong winds caused various problems & damage across Northern Ireland and Scotland during the afternoon. A gust of 90mph was reported at Bellmullet on the NW coast of Ireland and gusts of 77mph were reported across parts of southern Scotland at Drumalbin, Inverbervie and Salsburgh. 25,000 consumers lost their electricity supplies across NW Ireland and 30,000 across Scotland. Parts of the roof of Edinburgh airport's roof were blown off and there were numerous trees down and accidents as a result of fallen trees. A man was killed in Balloch, West Dunbartonshrie, when a tree fell and crushed his car. For about half-an-hour shops, offices and householders in Inverness had no electricity. The high winds also led to the closure of the Forth and Tay Road Bridges. Winds died down later as the low pressure moved away into the northern North Sea.

May 25th: Santon Downham (Suffolk) did well today being both the warmest and coolest place in the mainland UK. From a min of -0.5C it rose to 21.8C giving a 22.3C daily range. However St Helier in the Channel Isles reached 23.0C, making it the warmest day since May 8th..  

May 26th: An area of thundery showers developed across the London area in the late afternoon and gave localised quite high totals.This alleviated the dry ground problem in places but in such events heavy, rapid rain often runs off the surface quickly without sinking in and so isn't a great deal of use. However, many places further south saw hardly any rain fall. What did fall left areas of dust deposits, possibly from the Icelandic volcano.