May, one of my favorites
It’s a rainy Wednesday in Uniontown, however even a rainy day can be beautiful in late spring.
The spring rain has added a dimension of color to the landscape that only appears around the beginning of May when the trees have put on their leaves and the woods and hillsides are full of this vibrant green.
I like to call it Spring Green.
To add to the colorful joy are the blooming of our many shades of azalea, iris and the purple of the hybrid rhododendron bushes that grace many of our front yards. These are plants that bloom year after year with little care and maintenance and are well worth the initial cost to plant.
May is just such a wonderful time of the year to enjoy the outdoors. Most afternoons are on the pleasant side with temperatures in the 70s. Mornings are in the upper 40s and 50s. Records for the month are a high of 93 and a low of 28.
While frost can occur on any day in May it is highly unlikely after the 15th of the month which is considered the safe-planting date in the city. Outlying areas should wait until the 20th and for mountain areas and a few very deep valleys the safe date is May 30th. Since cold air is heavier it likes to drain into valley bottoms and low spots.
Many plants can survive a light frost when temperatures dip to freezing or just below. Most do not survive a hard freeze when the temperature drops into the mid to upper 20s and stays below freezing for several hours like we had on the morning of April 21st. The plants that I covered survived this cold onslaught while the hosta plant that I forgot to cover was badly damaged.
Rainfall in May averages 4.19 inches. Last year we had 8.07 inches which was 3.88 inches above average. You may recall after our wet spring last year, rain was hard to come by and we ended up in drought status for much of summer and into fall.
It has snowed in Uniontown in May, however it is rare. A number of days over the last 100 years have produced a few flakes of wet snow, however our record is 1.7 inches that occurred on May 1, 1963.
I like to watch the temperatures in Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska for clues to our coming weather and over the last month temperatures have climbed from 30 and 40 below zero to days in the 50s. This past week saw a high of 60 in Fairbanks. So where did all the cold air go? It looks like it is traveling southward and will bring a chilly spell to much of the United States, including Southwestern Pennsylvania.
It has moderated as it traveled into warmer air but still should produce below-normal temperatures for the last few days of April and the first week of May.