The afternoon of the 7th was fine and sunny but that evening fronts brought outbreaks of heavy, thundery rain and a severe thunderstorm broke out. Further heavy rain fell in the early hours of the 8th. There were also sharp showers on the 10th and the 11th. This unsettled spell provided much of the month's rainfall, as did a thunderstorm on the 28th, which I will come to later.

An anti-cyclone from Iceland brought dry but cool weather on the 12th. No rain at all fell between the 12th and the 20th. The temperature didn't exceed 56F on the 18th and fell to 43F early on the 17th, the lowest temperature of the month. The weather between the 14th and 17th was dry, and overcast with sunny spells.

There was a short warm spell between the 19th and the 20th, giving fine and sunny weather. The 20th in particular was a fine summers day with 73F and over 11 hours of sunshine, making it the sunniest day of the month.

A westerly type of weather held from the 21st to the 26th. Whilst the weather remained fine and sunny on the 22nd and 23rd, it turned cool. Conditions were unsettled on the 24th but were fine and sunny over the next few days. The warmest day of the month came on the 27th with 75F. However, there was humidity associated with this warmth, and it caused a dramatic and severe thunderstorm at 2am on the 28th. 0.82 inches of rain fell in two and a half hours. The 29th was a fine day and an anti-cyclone gave dry, but cool conditions for the 30th and the 31st.

May 1999 was a warm month and as it turned out, warmer than May 1998, though only marginally. 70F was reached or exceeded four times during the month. Both day and night time temperatures were comfortably in excess of average. Rainfall was above average but as in May 1998, most of it came in either thunderstorms or short, unsettled spells. It wasn't as sunny a month as May 1998 and gave below average sunshine totals, though there were only two sunless days recorded.

Kevin Phillips - 2.10pm - Saturday 5th June 1999.