Sunniest May ever recorded in the county

There were 285 hours of blazing sunshine across the county

MAY was the sunniest ever recorded in Leicestershire in records going back to 1860 with 285 hours of sunshine blazing down upon us, writes Phil Morrish.

High pressure dominated the month’s weather and the clear skies gave us 14 days when the sun shone for 10 hours or more with the max being 15.6 hours on May 29.

Once again the weather saved the lockdown day with people able to spend times in their gardens before being allowed out more widely later in the month. It was also a very dry month with rain falling on just three days in May and the total of just 3mm was the lowest ever recorded in figures going back to 1836.

It was also a mild month with afternoon temperatures averaging 19.1c which is 2.6c above normal. Night time temperatures were logged at 8c just 0.5c above normal.

The very sunny warm days then gave way to cooler nights under the clear skies. As a result the cooler nights largely counterbalanced the warm days so the overall mean temperature of 13.6c was just 1.5c above normal making it the warmest since 2018.

Our warmest day was the 20th when the temperature climbed to 26.4c which is nudging 80f. There were very few cool days but the 11th saw our coldest temp of just 11.4c. The warmest night was the 22nd at 13.7c with the coldest night being the 12th when 0.4c with a ground frost.

So a spectacular months weather but gardeners were getting worried at the end of the month as after a record wet spell between June 19 and February 20 had been replaced with extremely dry weather.

The spring rainfall total of just 65mm was only 40 per cent of normal while the spring sunshine figure was at a record high of 672 hours!

So unbelievably we have arrived in summer and as I write this on the 2nd the weather looks set to change to a more unsettled pattern as so often occurs in June.

Time to dig out our waterproofs but the gardeners among you will be dancing with delight!

There were very few cool days but the 11th May saw our coldest temperature of just 11.4c