May is perhaps surprisingly one of the least cyclonic months of the year and is a month to be savoured- the ‘darling buds of May’ are usually well opened by mid month on the trees and shrubs are well into new leaf. The longer light evenings can really make it feel that summer is just around the corner.

However, this pleasant picture is not always the case and there have been occasions when May has in fact been nothing but downright dismal. The period from May 9th to the 14th is Buchan's third cold spell (see our glossary for more on Buchan’s spells) and there is some evidence for this period holding up.

Recently we have been lucky enough to have some very reasonable May’s and the last poor one was as long ago as 1996. This was an unusually cold month, some 2C colder than average; in fact only 1902 was colder in recent times. The month started with cool north easterlies covering the country and low pressure to the south west over Biscay and high pressure to the north over Scotland established this pattern until well into the second week. A chilly upper pool of cold air sat over the south for some time and on the 18th, for example, the maximum in Bournemouth (Dorset) was just 7C. A train of depressions then crossed the UK in the second half of May, keeping chilly polar air across the north and wet weather across the south for much of time. In fact, it wasn’t until the 29th May that 20C was reached for the first time anywhere in the country, as a warmer south westerly flow took hold, which must have felt very welcome indeed after the month that had many had just experienced!

The summer that followed in 1996 was a pretty average one however and there’s no clear evidence that suggests that a cold May has any great effect on the following summer. In fact 1975 also had a cold May but it was followed by one of the warmer summers of the last century.