Memorial Day weekend is often referred to as the unofficial start of Summer – a time of the year when we expect heat, humidity and beach fun!
But the weather doesn’t always play nice for beach fun. There have been many times when we’ve seen rain and even some coastal storms, leading to not so nice holiday weather.
When we look at the averages, typically we see highs in the 80s and morning temperatures in the 60s. The coldest afternoon on record was in 1930, when we only saw temperatures climb to 61 degrees. Our record high is 94, set in 1895.
In terms of rain chances, out of 149 years on record, we’ve seen rain recorded 72 times. 77 of the years were dry. Now remember, this is just for Memorial Day itself and not the entire weekend.
I have a theory that since Memorial Day is always on a Monday, which means we always have a 3 day weekend. Thanks to this, people often look at the entire weekend vs the one day like we may for July 4th. So it seems wetter in many cases.
When we look at the past 5 years, 2021 was very wet. 2018 was as well. In fact, 2018 is our wettest Memorial Day on record.
In case you’re wondering – to no surprise – we have never recorded any snow on Memorial Day.
This weekend will see some rain chances – with scattered showers and storms from time to time. For more on this weekend’s weather check out the latest WAVY Weather blog.
Meteorologist Ricky Matthews