May 2007 worldwide chills

These won't get reported in the mainstream media, but here's a quick roundup of cold weather reports for the month of May, 2007.

From Mississippi State University Office of Agricultural Communications:

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Unseasonably cold weather in May hurt cotton and led to increased numbers of thrips in many crops, but a bigger problem has been too much or too little rain.

Charlie Wax, state meteorologist at Mississippi State University, said May temperatures ranged from 5 to 9 degrees below normal. The Coast was comparably colder and drier than the rest of the state. Many areas received rain the last few days of May.

From the University of New Hampshire:

DURHAM, N.H. – This was the fourth wettest May on record in Durham and the first ever with 11 days of consecutive precipitation (May 21-31), according to state climatologist David Brown at the University of New Hampshire. And if it felt unseasonably cold, that’s because the average daily high temperatures for May were the coldest since at least 1931.

From the Missouri Ruralist:

Extreme cold weather brought more trouble for grazers this spring than ever before, says Rob Kallenbach, University of Missouri Extension forage specialist. The prolonged wet weather has brought more grazing challenges.

In Argentina, the cold weather is causing serious problems. Argentina cold snap causes energy woes:

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - A cold snap in Argentina led to electricity and natural gas shortages this week, idling factories and taxis and causing sporadic blackouts in the capital.

Beset by the coldest May since 1962, millions of residents fired up space heaters, straining Buenos Aires' electrical grid for three nights and forcing authorities to slash power supply nationwide and briefly cut domestic natural gas provisions and exports to Chile.

Similar story from South Africa's Sunday Times in this report:

Certainly, the evidence in May all points to a sharp increase in both production and consumption, as the unseasonally cold weather in the second half of the month has led to record demand for heating power.

From the Daily Mail in the UK which headlines:

If you thought our weekend was bad look at the weather across the water...

Freak snow, freezing temperatures and tropical storms across Europe are making the Bank Holiday washout here look almost pleasant.

In Spitzing in Germany, locals have been forced to wrap up after ten centimetres of snow brought out the snowploughs for the first time this year.

It was the same story in towns close to the Alps in Austria, Switzerland and even northern Italy where temperatures in May routinely climb into the 80s.

In one Swiss valley, 3,000 were trapped in hotels and guest houses because trains could not reach them in the snow.

Ironically, the weather follows one of the worst winters ever for snow at Alpine ski resorts.

On the Mediterranean island of Corsica, two hikers died in freezing fog and on its beaches a 19-year-old man was killed by a wave.

Further north in cities like Berlin, tropical storms have brought four days of chaos, dumping hailstones as big as golf balls, uprooting trees and causing widespread flooding.

Britain was drenched over the weekend in some of the worst rain of the year.

Arctic winds hit the country on Monday at speeds of up to 50mph in what was described as one of the coldest Whitsun Bank Holidays.

From Paris, Fwance:

This isn't supposed to be winter but it's a good impersonation: cold, dank, wet while the French Open stops, starts, stops, starts, and tries to dry out.

But then things weren't so bad in beautiful San Diego. From the Union Tribune:

SAN DIEGO – In a year with record cold snaps and heat waves, May's weather is turning about as average as average gets. The normal high temperature this time of year in San Diego is 69 degrees. The forecast this week calls for highs ranging from 67 to 70. The normal low is 60 degrees; the forecast is for lows of 58 to 61.

Am I cherry-picking cold weather stories? You bet. Somebody has to do it.