May 2022 Boards weather forecast contest

May felt cold. Very odd. Warm nights I supppse.

mr.stonewall

Well done appledrop on a serious score. The leaderboard is tight at the top and lets hope we have a good run into December l, just like the premier League.

There still was good warmth in the days in may and the warmth had held overnight in the mornings. Not a bad month on the agri side

appledrop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150967#Comment_119150967

What if I lose my magic powers when the newborn actually starts sleeping though the night🤣.

pauldry

I actually did better when my twins were young. There must be correlation between being zonked and weather forecasting ability.

appledrop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119151306#Comment_119151306

🤣🤣🤣🤣

sryanbruen

The data has come in for synoptic stations for May 2022 and I have analysed it all here as promised.

I got the following anomalies relative to average* for the national mean maximum and mean minimum temperature during May 2022. The stations considered are the same as those used for the IMT in the forecast contests.

Mean max: 16.5C (+0.8C)

Mean min: 8.4C (+1.3C)

Pretty much confirms what I was saying in previous posts. The mild nights were the main player in how mild May 2022 was for the mean temperature but they weren't the only player as mean max was also at least 0.5C above average so the days weren't cool by any stretch of the imagination.

*Average refers to the climate period 1991-2020.

In terms of the warmest Mays for mean max and mean min, here's the warmest Mays for mean max firstly since 1958.

May 2008 17.7C

May 2020 17.5C

May 2018 17.4C

May 1990 17.4C

May 2001 17.3C

May 2017 17.2C

May 1959 17.1C

May 1989 17.0C

Some similar years to the IMT with 2008 being the big daddy again but a fairly different set of years. May 2022 is just outside the top 10 at 13th warmest for reference. May 2020 being the 2nd warmest is interesting too, shows the month was really brought down by the cold nights in the first half that it wasn't a big contender for the warmest IMT. Its mean max isn't significantly short of May 2008 which had a much warmer mean min.

Now here's the warmest Mays for mean min:

May 1999 8.8C

May 2008 8.5C

May 2022 8.4C

May 1970 8.3C

May 1998 8.2C

May 2014 8.1C

May 2011 8.0C

May 1992 8.0C

Now apart from 2008 and 1992, that's a very different set of years compared to the IMT. May 2022 was the 3rd warmest for mean min behind 2008 and 1999. May 1999 is still very much the warmest for mean minimum temperature on record. Mays 2011 and 2014 were also years I had in mind coming into this for notably mild nights or lack of cold nights whilst also lacking genuine warm days. The national absolute max temperature in May 2011 was only 20.6C, this includes climate stations.

I will be working on wind speeds next but before I do, the Met have said themselves briefly in the May 2022 monthly weather summary that wind wasn't especially strong in May 2022 relative to what Ireland expects during the month of May.

sryanbruen

Was Met Éireann correct in their wording of "not particularly strong"? National mean wind speeds for the month of May since 1960 suggest so indeed. May 2022 was the windiest May since 2015 nationally but historically is nothing special with most Mays being windier. The trend has been downwards over time. Mays 2016-21 were all calmer than average. The last very windy May was back in 2011 (a month renown for mild nights and not overly warm days as described in prior post). May 2019 was the 4th calmest since 1960.

@appledrop asked to look at Dublin Airport directly. The results are fairly similar. May 2022 was nothing special, most Mays of the past were windier. 8.8 knots is only the windiest since 2017 at the airport. The last windy May in Dublin was 2015 much like the national mean when the average was 12.6 knots here.

I wonder what makes May 2022 unusually windy in the minds of people? The 2021 wind drought? The tendency for calm Mays of late? Everything opening up and back as normal after all the lockdowns that commuting has gotten more frequent again? Poor memories? The mean wind direction? That's one thing I'll note about May 2022 as compared to many other Mays - May 2022 was an unusually westerly month and there wasn't much easterlies or northerlies (until the final few days) as you'd expect in a typical May given it is the most easterly month of the year on average. This definitely would have made it seem windier in the west than it was in the end I'd have thought. It's all interesting to ponder at but whatever the reason, statistically May 2022 was pretty forgettable all around bar the mild nights which themselves weren't even record breaking compared to May 1999. I think that closes the door firmly on May 2022 and it's a month to be forgotten.

appledrop

Thanks for all the analysis Sryanbruen, still felt very windy to me even compared to winter when it was on the school walks.

Maybe as you said it was due to direction it was coming from and I think because during last few years May has been less windy.