No sign of early summer swelter

WATERLOO REGION — Maybe our see-saw spring will continue into summer.

Temperatures in Waterloo Region were above average in February, below in March. Above average in April, below in May. So June will be on the warm side of normal, right? Nope. The pattern may be broken.

“I don’t believe that really foretells that June will be up again,” said Frank Seglenieks, co-ordinator of the University of Waterloo weather station.

“That sawtooth pattern, I think, is just kind of a random accident.”

So what temperatures can we expect for the first few weeks of June?

“Probably just a few degrees below average,” Seglenieks said.

So forget about enjoying readings higher than 25 C, as we saw twice in May. We’ll likely see them come in closer to 20 C leading into summer’s arrival on June 21.

It’s been a wet year so far.

We got 540 mm of precipitation in the five months of 2017, nearly setting a record for the past 100 years. We got 541.6 mm in the first five months of 2011.

And April and May turned into a one-two punch of sogginess.

We got 270 mm of rain in those two months, making them the third-wettest April-May since such local records were first kept in 1916.

“Sometimes at this time of year, we talk about people’s lawns not looking so well or people’s gardens not doing so well,” Seglenieks said.

“Certainly, they’ve gotten enough precipitation over these past couple of months to start out.”

So spring’s rain has been plentiful. Summer’s swelter may be tardy.

“People like to think of June as one of those summer months,” he said.

“There’s nothing that shows we’re going to get into the really hot summer temperatures any time soon.”