I wish, Rosie. Zero precipitation so far this calendar month at Chateau Dujon even though we experienced a couple of dry periods of electrical activity. Perhaps this little note will help in remedying that rather sad situation. Mind you, May is normally dry(ish).

(Duj) Yeah, I suppose for Aussies rain is generally a Good Thing whereas for us lot it is not. I've never had a rainless month though actually come quite close to it with about 2 mm in a few months in the past. The thing about this May is the warmth and sunshine. Some May days can be 'orrible; I've had two May days in the past when the temperature has failed to reach 7°C and there was a bit of sleet as well.

Up Periscope here at Chez Stevie.

Well, Rosie, my jinx worked. 7.5mm overnight (29/30) put the kybosh on a clean sheet.

(Duj) My sheet has been thoroughly cleaned by yesterday's downpour. Intermittent rain, heavy rain, light rain all day from an utterly featureless sky. It came to 32.2 mm, a May record for Plas Huws.

Eight straight days with a thunderstorm, this is the first without rain. Filled a plant pot to three inches, though uncalibrated. Nice warm weather and I've never seen strawberries so cheap.

(Bismarck) Wherzat den? Netherlands, N Germany?

Belgium, southerly of Pen. It did rain again overnight and then solidly the next day. The weather where I am at the moment shows no sign of rain.

Belgium, southerly of Pen. It did rain again overnight and then solidly the next day. The weather where I am at the moment shows no sign of rain.

Merlyn, are you sending out mails from a yahoo account? Because I got one consisting of a short link. If really sent it and really want me to open the link please resend with a subject and your MC name in the body.

[Bismarck] I've been watching the weather radar and seeing the intense storms drifting northwards from you to us over the past week, but either petering out before they arrive or slipping off course as they cross the rivers. It was mostly hot, or hot and and muggy last week, but there was lots of rain on Friday and much cooler and fresher Saturday/Sunday. Back to 20C and murk today, Monday, first day back after a week off work. *shrugs*

(pen) See lightning strokes in real time. Try this

[Rosie] Oooh. I also use www.buienradar.nl, plus the weather station belonging to the neighbour over the road, which has its own website and tweets - telling me if my washing is getting rained on while I’m 40km away at work.

(pen) And if it is?

[Rosie] This morning, yes. No rain on the rain radar but I forgot to check the drizzle radar.

This morning's weather, according to Dutch parlance, is 'sour apples' - autumnal weather when it should be summery.

(pen) It will very soon be sunny like it is here, 24°C and a bit of a breeze. Nice.

Just come back from thereabouts and had rain most of the time, but it was warm rain.

It got up to 30.2° today in the grounds of Plas Huws. Just after 5 pm a southerly breeze sprang up and the temperature dropped an almost instant 4 degrees. This must be the sea breeze - unusual because it doesn't normally reach this far north.

(Rosie) A wee bit different here in my humpy.
If you are interested I've posted a very broad but hardly usable short resume of the last 30-years from my location here

On the (delayed) Paris train, with eight Dutch people in the carriage making enough conversation to invade my noise-cancelling headphones. Jajaja!

(Duj) Your annual average in the parched Australian outback is higher than mine in the Elevated Surrey Wetlands, which is 822 mm. (35 yr). But your rain-days are less than 2/3rds of mine. I've never had a rainless month but this June came closest (1.2 mm) which by UK standards is the square root of a mouse's ear'ole. Good; the "lawn" stops growing so less work. Heat Is Work and Work Is Heat and it's quite warm enough.

True, Rosie, but here it tends to come down in lumps. This, as you well know, results in run-off which is good for the creeks and rivers, but not for much else. Here will be found records for three consecutive years each of which is different. It also, though not deliberately, includes the heaviest rainfall I have recorded over an Australian Meteorological day (0900 to 0900).

I see 188 mm in a day. I bet that caused some mayhem. The best I've done is 68 mm but before I started recording there was a case of 175 mm over 2 days (1968) which put half of Surrey under water. We get a different kind of lumpiness, of course, solid cold lumpiness. Biggest level depth here 16" or 39 cm. (1987). Those were the days.

I will try to keep up with the AVMA this week. However, I have to write my comp exams for grad school this week, so I may fall behind a bit. I'll make sure to come back after they are all submitted to check on it and that I've answered the questions!

Last three days minimum 28°C, clouds and even cumulonimbi scudding across the sky, not a drop of rain. Late fruit and veg harvest going to pot.

32C as I drove home from work yesterday afternoon. Black clouds approached, squally winds sprang up and blew all the windws shut, yet there was only the slightest wetting from rain. What a bleedin' let-down.

Those European cars must be a little different to those we drive over here, penelope. What I find with the storm bit of your comment is that my wife and I, or one of us, race out to bring in the washing - quite unnecessarily. Still, one cannot ignore the lumps - as mentioned to Rosie - so the odds are 'bring it in', regardless.

[Duj] When it's 31C and bowing a hooley, the washing dries in about 20 minutes.
And yeah - I nonned sequitured on the windows shutting thing - I meant the house windows blew shut.

Just waiting to hear results of my comp exams now. I've still got school work, but it's back to "normal" . . . for grad school.

[K] Hope they went well. What are you studying?

The temperature in the grounds of Plas Huws has now risen to 33.7°C, no less. I'm not sure why it's nearly 4 degrees warmer than yesterday but I suppose I ought to. Last night on Radio 4 that blithering twat Schaffernaker offered no help, not that he ever does.

I was at the barbers who had the BBC news channel on silent with the subtitles switched on. Apparently it was "the hottest day of beer so far." Oh, and they said "not to leave God in your car."

The car's temp readout yesterday (not up to Rosie's demands for scientific accuracy but it's the best I have on the move) as I drove past Ikea in Rotterdam said 37.5C.
An hour and a half later, we had a squally thunderstorm and it said 20C. Turns out that only the raindrops were cold because the temperature was back up around 30C when the rain stopped. It's currently at [checks neighbour's weather station - Meteo Heijningen' if you're curious] 36C. I'm working at home in front of a big fan. (No, not the windy miller, he's in his air-conditioned office).
Change is coming tomorrow - and we're doing a 24-hour marathon at the mill until Sunday lunchtime. [Molen de Korenbloem on FB if you're curious].

It is 37ºC in my sun-trap of a computer room. I have not ventured out into the furnace the last two days, but thunderstorms are promised for this evening. As is (rather more reliably, I think) a total lunar eclipse. Moonrise 20:48 where I am, during totality, which continues until 22:13, followed by the partial phase until 23:19, which is effectively the end of the show. Astronomers also define the penumbral phase (when the Earth blocks at least one point on the Moon from seeing at least one point on the Sun), which ends at 00:28. More information here.