I have to start off with our first three R-store gift card winners in the 2010 snowmelt contest. We had 66 people who predicted the correct date of the last snow on Rib Mountain – last Saturday May 29th. Now we are holding a random drawing among those 66 entrants to determine who wins the 5 big R-store gift cards. Today on Wake-Up Wisconsin we drew for 5th place ($25), 4th place ($50), and 3rd place ($100). We will hold the drawing for the top 2 prizes Wednesday morning on Wake-Up Wisconsin at 6:30 am. I will of course post the winners here in the blog as well. Everyone who does not get drawn for a gift card will receive a car wash coupon from the R-stores of Northcentral Wisconsin. I will be mailing out all the prizes later this week. So, onto the first three winners:

• 3rd place $100 gift card – Sandy Behrens (Tomahawk)
• 4th place $50 gift card – Tonya Muzynoski (Schofield)
• 5th place $25 gift card – Shelly Hoppe (Aniwa)

In the present weather, the good news is that we should get into a weather pattern for the first half of June that produces more chances of rain. As a drawback, temps will also be a bit cooler, although I seriously doubt we will have anything as cold as early June of 2009. It looks like high temps in the upper 60s to low 70s from Wednesday through Sunday. The first chance of rain will come tonight and then it looks like off-and-on rain chances each day from Friday through Sunday. After having just barely enough rain to keep things growing in May, it would be nice to have some heavier and more frequent rainfall in early June to get the crops growing. Speaking of lower than normal rainfall, how did May end up?

May of 2010 was a month of extremes in temperature. We had a stretch of well below normal temps and a stretch of above normal temps. The above normal weather ended up out-weighing the cooler weather an May ended up about 1.5 degrees above normal. During the depths of the cold spell we ended up with 2.9 inches of snow which makes the total snowfall for the month of May more than the months of April and March combined (only a trace in Wausau). There were three records set. A record high of 92 on the 24th, a record warm low temperature of 71 on the 24th, and a record warm low temperature of 67 on the 25th. The bad news is that May precipitation was about 1.5 inches below normal and this now puts us almost 5.5 inches below normal for the year. Here are the preliminary stats for Wausau:

Average High: 69.6  (normal: 68.5)

Average Low: 47.1  (normal: 45.1)

Precipitation: 1.97 inches  (normal: 3.54 inches)

Snowfall: 2.9 inches (normal: 0.1 inches)

Highest Temperature: 92 on the 24th

Lowest Temperature: 30 on the 9th

Here is a final interesting useless weird note on the monthly stats. The coldest temp in April occurred on the 9th. The coldest temp in May occurred on the 9th. With the cooler weather pattern developing early this month, the coldest temperature of June could once again happen on the 9th.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Monthly Recap, Snowmelt 2010