Another mild month for the UK, with only Lerwick of the 20 locations monitored here experiencing cooler than average daytime temperatures for May. Most of the month was warmer than average with just isolated cold days occurring on the 17^th and 30^th. The 27^th, by contrast, was the warmest day in the UK since last August. Both of the Bank Holiday Mondays in May were quite mild and relatively dry. The best of the warm weather was in the south and east of the country where temperatures were more than 2ºC above average.

Scotland and parts of the west country were wet during May, but elsewhere rainfall totals were 15 per cent or more below average justifying the organisers choice of May to stage the cricket World Cup. There were just two wet weekends - the 8^th/9^th and the 29^th/30^th. Apart from on these few days, very little rain fell during May. The extreme south of England recorded less than 40 per cent of usual May rainfall. In contrast, most of Scotland was wetter than usual. The nationwide average was very close to average, although 1999 has so far been comfortably wetter than average (see graph).

Sunshine totals in May struggled to reach the monthly average, managing to do so only in eastern England and eastern Scotland. Lerwick (+35 per cent) was sunnier than Bournemouth (-7 per cent) and enjoyed nearly 7 hours of sunshine per day. Sunshine totals over western UK were a rather miserable 20 per cent below average, Morecambe being particularly cloudy with just over 4 hours of sunshine per day. The dullest day in the month was Sunday 30^th, the day the England cricket team were eliminated from the World Cup.

Daytime Temperature: 1.2°C above average; Rainfall: average; Sunshine: 5% below average.

[all average figures are based on the 1951-80 average]

Mean monthly extremes:

Warmest Bournemouth 17.7°C

Sunniest Folkestone 275 hours sun

Wettest Eskdalemuir 160mm

Coldest Lerwick 9.7°C

Cloudiest Morecambe 135 hours sun

Driest Bournemouth 16mm