1,000 Records Broken: May Cold and Snow

UPDATE 5/12: The number of low + low max records has increased with yesterday's data, to 384 (156) + 540 (46) = 924 (202), not including ties, where () indicates Eastern U.S. only. Even more impressive, 19 monthly snowfall records were set (in other words those stations had never seen a snowier May), and 190 daily snowfall records were set. And it's snowing again, heavily in the West this week. In Fort Collins, Colorado, this has helped to add to the 3rd snowiest winter.

UPDATE: Snowflakes are now mixing in with the rain in State College, PA, making this the second day with snow this month, something that only happened once, in 2002, according to local weather records. Here are some pictures that local storm chaser Ron "R-Factor" Shawley took on Cresson Summit:

ORIGINAL REPORT: It's May 11th, 2010 and it's snowing on Cresson Summit, Pennsylvania, as you can see from the PennDOT webcam there:

Here in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map], we are having our second day this with temperatures not getting out of the 40s (see graph from my weather station below); we have never seen a May day in the 40s since I moved to Central Pennsylvania (1998 - May 10, 1997 was the last one, and a local observer with 25 years of records says that Sunday was colder). This morning my weather station dipped to 29 degrees. Cowanesque Dam in Tioga County dipped to 20, according to NWS CO-OP reports.

I also saw snow pellets over the weekend (Sunday) at my house here in State College. Snow is not unprecedented in May in the mountains of Pennsylvania, but it is rare. It's only happened 2-4 times since I moved here (depending on whether you use the local observer's records or the official Penn State records) and In May 2008, we got a little snow here in town on May 12th.

And it's not just been chilly here in Pennsylvania. So far in the month of May, over 100 daily record low temperatures have been broken in the East. Take the res of the country into account and you're looking at over 450. Add in record low afternoon temperatures and there are over 800 records. So why has it been so darn cold?

And it's not even limited to the Eastern U.S.: Mark Vogan's blog says that subzero temperatures have not been recorded this late in the Spring for at least 10 years. Peter Sinks, UT hit -15 Friday, which ties the record May low temp for the Continental U.S., according to Trent Trent McCotter From UNC via email (based on a manually-updated version of this document).

It's also cold and snowing in Scotland; more information will be available on Mark Vogan's blog later today.