I think May 2008 will go down in the record books as one cool, cloudy, and damp month.  Although we are finally talking about temperatures reaching into the 90s for a prolonged stretch, it certainly took a long time to get here.  We struggled through endless rainy days and temperatures well below normal for most of last month.  I will try and sum it all up for you right here with my month in review.

First, let's talk temperatures.  The hottest day ever recorded in May for Harrisburg was 97 degrees back on May 1, 1942.  The coolest temperature ever recorded was 31 degrees on May 11, 1966.  As you can see, May can be quite fickle as we make the transition from spring to summer.  This May, the hottest temperature was 83 degrees on May 26...Memorial Day!  The coolest temperature was 39 degrees back on May 1.  We started and ended the month rather warm with temperatures the first week ranging in the 60s and 70s, while the final week had temperatures in the 70s and 80s.  In between, we were cool and cloudy with four days not making it out of the 50s for high temperatures!  When we average everything together for the entire month, we ended up 3.5 degrees below normal.  That certainly is no surprise to any of us!

Now we can shift our focus to precipitation.  Here is a really interesting fact: we had rain on 20 of the 31 days in the month of May!  That is pretty damp.  The most rain we have ever recorded during the month of May was 9.71 inches back in 1989.  We only recorded 0.29 inches of rain back in May of 1902, which is the record.  This May, we measured a total of 5.71 inches of rainfall at the Harrisburg International Airport.  That is 0.81 inches above our normal value.  The greatest 24 hour total occurred on May 15-16 when we received 1.22 inches.  Once again, it should come as no surprise that we were above normal in the precipitation department last month.

Finally, let's talk about snowfall.  No, we did not get any snow this May, but we have in past Mays.  We have received some trace snowfalls in May during the years of 1977, 1966, and 1963.  We did not add to our winter total of 14.0 inches of snow during last month, so that total will hold for this season, which is well below normal.  The other item I want to point out with this month in review feature is that no records were broken during May 2008.

What will June hold?  Well, I kept promising a cooler summer, but here we are talking about a long stretch of days with 90 degree temperatures.  I am not ready to concede just yet.  Summer has not yet officially begun, and I still think we could see a cooler period heading into the latter half of June.  Time will tell if I am right or wrong.  Frankly, it is a bit of a surprise that we are talking about this type of heat so early.  If the pattern holds, which we think it will, we could be talking about a week or longer of 90 plus degree heat!  Break out the swimsuits and crank up those air conditioners!