It was the sunniest of times; it was the cloudiest of times.
Welcome to our weekly feature, “Weekend Weather Wows,” where we’ll go back and find the most exciting tidbits of weather you might have missed over the past week, so you’ll be ready to impress at the water cooler (or virtual water cooler) come Monday.
I’ve spent the past two weekends highlighting just how cloudy Southern California has been these past several weeks. San Diego was the cloudiest city in the Lower 48 in May, and Los Angeles went nearly two straight weeks of overcast. But what about the flip side?
Alaska Climatologist Brian Brettschneider calculated the data and found that while indeed coastal Southern California had its cloudiest May on record as far as lack of solar energy; the Northeast had among their sunniest if not their sunniest May on record by the ECMWF’s analysis of solar energy received:
THIS SUNNY CALIFORNIA TOWN WAS THE CLOUDIEST SPOT IN THE CONTINENTAL U.S. IN MAY
That includes New York and Boston along with much of New England. Even Buffalo was Top 5, if not Top 2.
New York City had only 21.9% average cloud cover for the month as measured by the weather station data at Central Park – the third-sunniest since 2006.
Then June arrived, and thunderstorms hit Quebec and lighted some fires and the smoke came and the sun went away. The orange is gone, but the gray will be around a bit.
On the other hand, there’s Palm Springs, California: America’s worst place to daydream. No sitting in a grassy field under a palm tree staring wistfully at passing clouds the sky while pondering their shapes this spring.
In the 70 days since April 1, Palm Springs has seen clouds on two days – and just for a few hours’ each day at that.
They last saw a cloud 20 days ago – or at least their weather station has reported 0% cloud cover each day since May 20 and on nearly every other day since April 1. Yes, it’s in the desert, but that’s just 140 miles from May cloud champ San Diego.
While daydreaming might be out for Palm Springs this spring, poolside hangouts and frequent golf excursions are still recommended.
In between the coastal cloud conundrums, thunderstorm clouds took a bit of a breather in May as well.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center marveled at how May nearly set records for lack of severe weather events., despite May being peak time for Midwestern Meteorological Mayhem.
Some of their highlights:
No, that wasn’t snow turning Idaho’s Highway 20 white Thursday, it was hail, and a lot of it.
The National Weather Service in Pocatello, Idaho said a strong thunderstorm not only dropped 2 to 4 inches of hail, but the temperature plummeted from 81 to 45 in 10 minutes By average temperature, that’s like going from June 23 weather to Nov. 17 weather in the blink of an eye.
Usually, Oklahoma City reaches its first 90-degree day on May 8, but had yet to reach the mark by June 8.
Meanwhile usually cooler spots in the North such as Forks, Washington, Fargo, North Dakota, Marquette, Michigan and Caribou, Maine had already hit 90.
Welcome to the club, OKC! The city finally reached 90 on Friday.
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