Submitted by Bill Caulfeild-Browne
The first half of May was the coldest I have recorded in the nearly 25 years my weather station has been operating. While the lowest temperature of -1.7C itself is not a record (2004 had a dip down to -1.9C) the fact that we had five nights of frost is. At one point near the middle of the month our mean temperature was 6C below normal.
This cold was not unique to Tobermory. Everywhere from Kenora to Ottawa to Toronto was freezing. To add insult to injury, major lake-effect snow flurries afflicted many areas on May 8th and 9th giving as much as 13 cms. in Fergus and closing a number of highways. While we saw snow in the air here, nothing measurable actually settled.
Two thirds of the way into the month, only three days had made it into the teens, and then only barely – the best day reached 13.5C. But then Mother Nature hit the right switch and the other extreme arrived – five straight days in the twenties, with the highest reaching an almost-record 28.7C. (2006 had a day at 29.3C). Ottawa reached 35C, an all time record for that city.
Overall, the mean temperature for the month was an unremarkable 0.9C below normal at 8.2C, which just goes to show that averages don’t reveal the real picture.
Precipitation here was well below normal with just 46 mm. of rain against a norm of 66 mm. Those who follow the weather radar will have noted that most storms passed south of Tobermory. Essex county and the state of Michigan got far more than they wanted, including a major dam failure. Our rainiest day was the 24th, at 12 mm.
It was a very sunny month. Only six days could be called dull – over half the days were sunny from dawn until dusk. June has started out sunny too – let’s hope it continues!
