Monthly review May 2022

After the too cold April, the spring month of May presented itself in our region with a mean
temperature of 15.7 °C, which was 2.6 degrees too warm compared to the climate reference
period 1961-1990. This made it the fourth warmest May since 1961.
The sun shines for a total of 289 hours. This corresponds to a clear plus of 91 hours. In terms
of "hours of sunshine" , May was ranked 4th among all May months since measurements
began.

Last but not least, there was a drop of bitterness that we cannot omit - last May was
considerably too dry. The sum of all individual precipitation measurements in Coswig in May
was only 18.0 mm. The monthly total thus corresponded to only 30% of the reference value
for this month. The annual precipitation balance so far in 2022 is thus now a minus of 50
mm. The spring of 2022 was too dry by a total of -78 mm.
Our region in focus, Meissen-Coswig-Radebeul, once again proved to be one of the driest
regions in Saxony. Currently, the drought monitor of the Halle-Leipzig Environmental
Research Center shows that the persistent exceptional drought of the soil has intensified
again down to a depth of 1.8 metres.

 Weather patterns: 
In the first and second decade of May, the frontal zone (jet stream) ran north of our area,
while dry weather prevailed over Central Europe under the predominant influence of high-
altitude highs. It was not until around the middle of the month that the small low pressure
system BORA, moving from west to east, brought us widespread precipitation worth
mentioning at least 5 mm. In the Leipzig district, more than 30 mm of rain fell in some
places. In the course of the last decade of the month, a zonally westerly high-altitude current
formed temporarily, but this was very quickly replaced by a highly disturbed circulation
(blocking) (Fig. 1).