May 2023 starts in showery mood
May 2023 started in a showery mood on 1st, with heavy rain and a sharp drop in temperature just after lunch. The thermometer dropped from 15.4 degC at 13:31 to 9.8 degC just an hour later.
On 9th there were some very heavy showers, especially around mid-day, yielding 8.6mm in total for the day. It was quite warm however.
The three day spell from 9th-11th produced some fine spring weather, with 18.7 degC on 11th, but the following day by contrast was very windy, cold and drizzly, with a maximum of only 10.8 degC.
Up until the middle of May, the showery regime continued, with showers nearly every day, some of them heavy, and the weather never really settled down. Temperatures began to creep into the upper-teens, but there always seemed to be a nagging cool breeze to go with them.
Temperatures perked up after the 21st, reaching 20 degC on 5 days, with plenty of sunshine evident. There was an incredible display of solar halos on 28th May. This was visible all over the North East, with the best displays at the coast, although the display in Durham was also excellent.
In the last few days, the flow off the North Sea produced cool cloudy conditions for the North East, while the west of the country basked in 25 degC with wall to wall sunshine.
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