May was 'rather warm' - Met Office

May was a rather warm month with a mean temperature of 20.2°C but no weather records were broken, according to infromation issued by the The warmest May was 1945 with a mean temperature of 21.8 °C, whilst the coolest was that of 1991 with 17.1°C.

The warmest day last month was the 31st, when the thermometer at the Meteorological Office reached 29.0 °C. The warmest May days ever recorded were in 1945 when 34.4°C was reached on both the 22nd and 23rd. The coolest May days on record are the 12th of May 1925 and the 10th of May 1931, when a maximum temperature of just 15 °C was recorded.

The lowest temperature last month was 14.0 °C, recorded late in the night on the 5th. The coolest May night since 1923 was that of the 4th of May 1970 with a low of 8.0 °C.

The wind speed in May, averaging 8.7 knots (10 miles per hour or 16 kilometres per hour), which was the norm for May.

The lowest grass-height temperature last month was 10.2 °C on the 6st of the month. The lowest ever recorded grass-height temperature in May was 2 °C on the 4th of the month in 1970.

The average sea surface temperature last month was 18.8 °C, one degree warmer than the average value for May since 1978.