Chateauguay Valley Weather
by Peter Finlayson, Ormstown Weatherman
The weather in May has at least been consistent – cool and wet. The average temperature is now 11.3 Celsius after the first twenty-five days of the month, still sitting well below the normal of 14.3 Celsius. With less than a week left in the month, it is unlikely to catch up. There was only 14 mm of rain in the past week, bringing the month-to-date total to 80 mm which is only a bit above normal (75 mm). But it has rained 7 out of the last 8 days and 17 out of the 25 days in May, and with very little sunshine and warmth to dry out the ground, the ground has mostly been showing puddles all the way through.
The official count for heat units (HU) started on May 19th, so we now have 110 HU to date. Even though some jurisdictions start the HU count earlier in May, there have only been 155 HU since May 1st, so the difference won’t make a . . . difference anyway by the end of the season. Besides, even those who have managed to plant corn in the ground, there is very little that has emerged to take advantage of the little warmth that has been present. The summer ahead is looking better but not hot – the Accuweather forecast has not one day above 30.0 Celsius, a stark contrast to 2018 which had 17 days above thirty degrees.
