June is Here :)

Wow it is actually June. I love June. June marks the beginning of those ridiculously long summer nights. The Summer Solstice is upon us with an arrival in just about three weeks. Nearly 16 hours of sunshiny goodness and at least 4 more hours of beautiful twilight. If you are an astronomy buff this is the sucky time ;) We only manage to get about 3.5 hours of astronomical dark sky. You need to be observing from 11:30 pm to 3:00 am. Yikes!

It's worth it though. Summer is on its way and I am excited about it. But before I jump up and down with glee that the rains will begin to subside and the sun will warm us into glorious 80s... let's take a peek at the numbers for a very bouncy May.

May opened up with the first 90 degree temp of the year on the 1st of the month with a 90.1 degree reading. That was not enough to top the chart for the whole month as the 14th mustered up a toasty 90.3 degrees. Average highs across the whole of May were 69.28 degrees quite warmer than the "normal" 66.56. In fact the merry month of May produced five days above 80 degrees and another six in the 70s. The chilliest daytime high was on the 9th with a 53.2 degree reading under heavy rain and hail. But we can't complain since 26 of May's 31 days managed to get above 60 degrees.

May was also a bit balmy overnight this year. Average low temps were 49.43 degrees about 3 above the normal 46.77. The coldest low temp came on the 7th with an April-ish 39.7 degrees. Some of the outlying areas got a little frost that day, not here though. The warmest night of the month came on the 23rd with a very July-like 57.3 degrees.

Precipitation was close to normal. My rain gauge is out of commission so I used the numbers from the "Orchards North" station, very nearby. I think I actually got a little more rain than showing on the chart but it is close. 3.20 inches of wet stuff and a couple of days with a thick coating of hail on the ground. We had some bumpy T-storms rumble through a few times this past month. The wettest day was a sloppy 1.17 inches. There were 5 days with more than quarter inch of rain and 16 days of delicious sunshine.

The forecast is for 70s and even a few 80s over the next week and so Portland's Rose festival should be just peachy. Get out and soak it up my friends, soak it up!