May Revisited

Compared to historical averages, May in Hood River was (oddly enough) slightly warmer and drier. It sure seemed cooler and wetter at the time, but apparently the brief record hot spell at the middle of the month moved the averages up. Go figure.

The average temperature was 0.9 degrees warmer than long term averages, and 0.3 degrees above 2000-2007 averages. Wind speeds were higher than average, with West winds predominating.

There were 3 local weather records set during the mid month warm spell. On May 17th, the high of 92 broke the old record of 90 (1954). The next day, May 18th, the high of 95 broke the old record of 91 (1956), and the low of 63 broke the old "high low" record of 56 (1986).

Why, you might ask, did I proclaim 5 records during the month in earlier posts to this blog? It comes down to the proverbial apples and oranges thing. The official keeper of Hood River weather data and records is the OSU Ag Research Station. However, their daily data is usually not published until several days later. Not only that, their data is collected at 8 am each day, meaning that their data is from 8 am to 8 am, and my weather station's data is from midnight to midnight. In addition, our stations are separated by several miles, and temperatures and rainfall can vary, sometimes substantially, at that distance.

So, one should consider any temperature and rainfall records that I mention during a month to be tentative. When I do this monthly summary, I use the OSU data (not my own station data) to confirm an official record.

Regarding wind gusts and averages, I am relying totally on my own station data from 2000 to present, as wind speeds vary dramatically locally, especially on the Columbia River (much higher than mine).

	High	Low	Average	Historical Average	Variance
Temperature (F)	95	32	57.3	56.4	0.90
Wind (mph)	30		4.3	3.9	0.4
Rainfall (in)	0.17		0.80 (total)	1.08	-0.28