HAS Unless you have spent the last 31 days locked in a room without windows, you will not have missed the fact that it rained in May. It even rained a lot, as evidenced by the latest climatological report from the Royal Meteorological Institute (IRM): it is almost a record since with 23 days of precipitation recorded in Uccle, we have to go back to… 1856 to find a worse bulletin – he then had 30 days left of the 31 that make up the “lovely” month of May. For the current reference period, which begins in 1991, the previous record dated from 2007 and 2021 (22 days), while the normal is 14.7 days.
It therefore rained more often, but it also rained a lot: still in Uccle, the IRM recorded a total of 124.9 mm of precipitation while the normal for May is 59.7 mm. “This is the wettest month of May for the current reporting period, just behind the 2013 record (132.5 mm),” notes the Royal Institute. “The absolute record is 145.6 mm in 1965.” It is Mont-Rigi, in the commune of Waimes, which has the sad privilege of having experienced the rainiest day of the month, May 29, with 53.7 mm of precipitation in 24 hours. And who says rain generally means absence of sun: the day star only shone for 140 hours in May, or 59 hours less than normal.
Do you want more ? “Notable fact”, notes the IRM, the month of May is already the eighth consecutive month with above-average precipitation, equaling the absolute record established in 1905. But that’s not all: over this eight-month period from October 2023 to May 2024, the sky graced Uccle with 803.2 mm of precipitation, or 90 mm more than in 1905 (714.6 mm). Under these conditions, the meteorological spring of 2024 “became the second wettest spring since 1833 and the fifth consecutive season to record above-average precipitation,” notes the IRM in its report. “Regional average precipitation was everywhere above normal values this spring, and deviated from 115% of normal in Belgian Lorraine, to 200% of normal in the Pays de Herve.”
However, let’s end on a “good” note: if the month of May was humid and dark, it was also… hot, with an average temperature of 14.9 degrees, compared to 13.9 for the seasonal norm. As in the last three months, the minimum temperatures were particularly high, explains the IRM. “The average minimum temperature this month was almost 2°C higher than normal: 11.3°C (normal: 9.2°C). This is the second highest value since observations began in 1833. The record remains that of 2008 (11.4°C).”
