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Temperature| As shown in the above figure, global temperatures were much warmer than average in May. Although temperatures remained below those measured near the end of the 1997/1998 warm phase of El Nino, May 2000 land surface temperatures once again approached record levels as the cold phase of El Nino (La Nina) weakened in the equatorial Pacific. Average land surface temperatures were 0.67C above the 1880-1999 long-term mean, 0.30C cooler than in 1998 while the average sea surface temperature was 0.26C above average, the eighth warmest May sea surface temperature anomaly. The extremely warm land surface temperatures combined with above average sea surface temperatures resulted in a land/sea average anomaly of 0.38C above the long-term mean, 0.31C below the 1998 value, the third warmest May on record. |
| The adjacent plot shows the spatial distribution of temperature anomalies throughout the world based on a 1961-1990 base period. May temperatures were much warmer than average throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere, while cooler than average temperatures prevailed over many land areas south of the equator. Strong positive anomalies covered much of Western Europe, Siberia, China and the United States with values in excess of 3C in many areas. |  larger image |
| The only widespread areas of below normal temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere can be found in the western half of Canada, Alaska, Central Russia and India. Temperatures were more than 4C below normal in many areas north of the Caspian sea as a low pressure trough persisted throughout much of the month. In the Southern Hemisphere, two areas of widespread below-normal temperatures are evident. Temperatures were cooler than normal in all areas of Australia with the exception of eastern coastal sections. Below normal temperatures also covered much of the southern half of South America as storms and continued cloudiness kept temperatures down throughout the month. |
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Data collected by NOAA's TIROS-N polar-orbiting satellites and adjusted for time-dependent biases by NASA and the Global Hydrology and Climate Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville indicate that temperatures in the lower half of the atmosphere (lowest 8km) were near the 20-year average (1979-1998) in May. |
| Although the cold phase of El Nino (La Nina) is beginning to weaken, temperatures in the tropics (20N-20S) remained well below average in May. The anomaly in this region was -0.36C, while temperatures were above average elsewhere. An anomaly of +0.28C was measured in the 20N-90N latitude band, while temperatures south of 20S were +0.08C above average. |
Precipitation larger image |
As shown in the figure to the left, May precipitation anomalies were highly variable. The largest negative anomalies (indicating drier than normal conditions) occurred in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan and Taiwan with some areas more than 150mm (6 inches) below normal. Other notable areas of below normal rainfall include the Southeastern United States, much of Eastern Europe, Australia and Brazil. Notable areas receiving much above-normal precipitation include much of Argentina, Columbia, and Bangladesh. |
References:
Peterson, T.C. and R.S. Vose, 1997: An Overview of the Global
Historical Climatology Network Database. Bull. Amer. Meteorol.
Soc., 78, 2837-2849.
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