Despite the old "nut-gathering" nursery rhyme, cold and frosty mornings are statistically few and far between in May. There are only five on average. And even when there may be a nip in the air, we have mercifully reached the time of year when the probability of snow is almost zero.
Again on average, a fall of snow occurs in May once every five to 10 years, but such little flurries as may come our way tend to be pretty harmless, and cause little, if any, disruption. Indeed, the rarity of snow this month is attested to by no less a person than Lord Biron, not he of the "y" and Hellespontal fame, but Ferdinand's side-kick in Love's Labour Lost:
At Christmas I no more
desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in
May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing
that in season grows.
In fact, there is comparatively little precipitation of any kind in this sector of the annual cycle. On average, April, May and June are the driest months in Ireland. Lowlying parts of the country normally experience less than 75 mm of rain during this month, but as always, mountainous areas have somewhat more; 100-to200 mm is typical for the highlands of Kerry, Donegal and Wicklow.
Other statistics of May weather confirm the obvious - it gets warmer as the spring matures. The temperature on a typical May afternoon can be expected to reach 14 to 16 degrees Celsius, a degree or two higher than what is usual for April.
Once or twice during the month, the temperature may creep above 20 degrees Celsius, and indeed during the last few days of May in 1922 the thermometer touched the record value of 28 degrees in a number of places. An average day in May has about six hours of sunshine, and the seas around our coast will have warmed to around 10 or 11 degrees Celsius.
These welcome hints of the approaching summer, and the Earth's waxing productivity at this time of year, are reflected in the various names by which the month has been known throughout the centuries.
The Anglo-Saxons called it Thrimilce, because their cows had to be milked three times a day; the old Dutch name was Bloumaand, "blossoming month"; and when the French revolutionaries coined their new proletarian and non-denominational calendar in 1792, they called it Floreal, the month of flowers.
Our name for May comes from the Latin Maia, the ancient Roman goddess of prosperity and growth. All in all, it is an optimistic month; "Hard is the heart," wrote Geoffrey Chaucer, "that loveth naught in May".