BUFFALO, N.Y. — As May comes to a close, it's ending similar to how it began temperature wise: morning lows in the 40s and afternoon highs in the 50s. But it's what is in between that should be remembered, even if monthly averages don't show it.
The average temperature of May 2020 was 55.9 degrees, about a degree away from the normal monthly average of 56.8 degrees. Turns out early month cold snap and late month heat wave cancel each other out, leaving the facade of a "normal" May temperature wise.
But, this past May included at least four record tying or breaking temperatures for the Buffalo area. May 9, May 12 and May 13 all experienced daily record tying low temperatures all in the lower 30s. And for those high temperatures, May 26 saw a new daily record high temperature of 93 degrees, breaking the previous record of 88 degrees set back in 1944.
As for precipitation, May received 3.87 inches of rain. That's slightly above the monthly average of 3.34 inches. And for snow, May was (again) average by matching the monthly norm of 0.3 inches of snow.
However, snow that fell on May 8, May 9 and May 12 did create daily records of their own. May 8 and May 12 created and tied new records of a trace of daily snowfall. For May 9, snow accumulated to 0.3 inches for the day, which the last time Buffalo saw that much accumulation for a single day in May was back in 1989.
So even as many days in May set new records and left Western New York to experience nearly all four seasons in one month, May 2020 is another example of how mathematical means can leave an eventual month out of history.
Note that records are based on observations and data kept at the Buffalo International Airport.
