More clouds and showers

Wild photo of waterspouts off Grand Island on Louisiana's Gulf Coast on Wednesday. (NOLA.com)

It is official, May has not been very nice so far. We have had lots of clouds, about 70% of the time, and too many showers. We seem to be paying our debt to March and April for the above normal temperatures and sunshine. Just how warm was this past winter? According to Environment Canada, the third warmest since records began. The average temperature across Canada was 3.6C missing the overall record by less than 1/2 a degree.

Yesterday Montreal managed a humid high of 19C. There were numerous showers and thunderstorms across Ontario and into the Laurentians north and west of Montreal but they managed to avoid the city. This morning we have low pressure lifting north along the Atlantic Coast with rain falling rather heavily from eastern New England into the Maritimes. Some locations will see close to 75mm (3 inches) of rain today. Numerous locations in Coastal Massachusetts and New Hampshire had at least that overnight. We will remain under clouds from that system but the precipitation should stay east of the city. Gusty northwest winds and clouds will keep high temperatures down to 15C today. A few showers are possible overnight tonight and into Friday before skies clear out. We are looking at a mostly sunny and mild weekend, but we may see a few clouds and perhaps a stray shower late Saturday night.

We did have some active weather yesterday with small hail in Ontario during afternoon thunderstorms. There was also some waterspouts (tornadoes over water) in coastal Louisiana along Grand Island on the Gulf Coast. I posted a spectacular shot from NOLA.com above.