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Northeast Regional Climate Center |
The Northeast was 2.7 degrees below normal this May, making it the 17th coolest May of the 108 years on record. All 12 states were below normal. Of them Delaware (62.5 degrees) was the warmest - only 0.3 degrees on the cool side. Nine states were more than 1 degree below normal and six of those were more than 2 degrees below normal (including Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine and Pennsylvania). New York and Vermont were the most extreme at 3.8 and 4.3 degrees colder than the average, respectively. That makes this May the twelfth coldest on record for both states. This was the first month since July 2001 with a temperature below the normal, and the first below normal May since 1997.
For the third straight month the Northeast received more precipitation than normal. This May was 0.87 inches of rain above the average of 3.96 inches. However, four states were drier than normal - Delaware, Maine, Maryland, and New Jersey. Maryland recorded 1.02 inches less than its normal, making it the driest state. On the other end of the spectrum, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island all were over an inch and a half wetter than normal. Those four states plus Connecticut and West Virginia measured over 5 inches of rain. For Massachusetts and New York it was the 9th wettest May on record. Overall for the Northeast this was the wettest May since 1996, and the second wettest since 1990.
Monthly Summary of State Temperature and Precipitation Averages.