The driest April and May since 1833
It will no doubt have not escaped your attention. The last few weeks have been exceptionally dry. In fact April and May 2020 have been the driest months of April and May since 1833.
In an average May 66.5 mm of rain falls per square metre. So far this month just 5.4mm/M² has fallen. Unless the weather forecasters have got it seriously wrong no more rain will fall during the final two days of the month.
According to figures from the Royal Meteorological Institute KMI the last time there was so little rain in May was in 1833 when just 1.4mm/M² fell. Spring 1901 was also exceptionally dry. Then 9.3mm of rain fell per M² during May, most more than has been the case during May 2020.
During an average April and May 118mm of rain per M² falls in Belgium. With just two days of left in May the total for the two months so far is just 24.4 mm/M² at the Ukkel Weather Centre in Brussels. This breaks the previous record for dry weather in April and May that was set in 1893 (25.9 mm/M²)
Only the relatively wet month of March prevented spring 2020 entering the record books as the driest ever.
In March, April and May 105mm of rail fell per M². This is well below the average of 188mm/M for the three month period. During the past three months it rained on 23 days. This is half the average of 46 days for March, April and May.
Never before has spring been sunnier than this year. During an average spring (March, April, May) the sun shines for a total of 464 hours. However, today (Friday) the previous sunshine record of 707 hours has been broken.