Are These Cool Temperatures Record Breaking?

A blog reader asked Sunday afternoon if having this much cool weather in May is unusual.

Well Alicia, our cool temperatures of the past three days are unheard of for sure, but it is rare indeed.

The average high for May 15^th in the Magic City is 81F.

The record low for today, Monday and Tuesday is 43F.  Wednesday’s is 44F.  We could flirt with those records with 45F expected Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning.  Tomorrow morning’s low should be near 50F.

But the real story is in the daily highs.

We tied the record for coolest daytime high on any May 15th at Birmingham today with a reading of 62F.  That’s nearly twenty degrees below normal for the date.

We could stay in the 50s on Monday with cooler air, clouds and some precipitation.

Since 1900 at Birmingham, there have been 8 days in May with highs in the 50s.  That computes to just over a 0.02% (or about 1/50th of 1%) chance that any May day will top out in the 50s.

The latest day with a high in the 50s occurred on May 18, 1945, when it was 59F.  We’re going to come within two days of tying that mark if we stay in the 50s tomorrow.

Our coldest May maximum ever came on May 3, 1921 when it was 52F.  There have been 175 May days with highs in the 60s.  That computes to a 5% chance that any May day will have a maximum high in the 60s.

The record cool maximum for May 16th at Birmingham is 63F, set in 1983.  We could be as much as 20-25F below average tomorrow.  In fact, the afternoon high could be close to the average low for the date!

Category: Alabama's Weather