May Weather Forecast 2024: What Will The Weather be on Memorial Day Weekend?

May Forecast 2024

Overall, May looks to be warm across much of the eastern U.S., including the Great Lakes, eastern Ohio Valley, and much of the South. We expect below-average temperatures from the Plains to the Upper Midwest. Just as on the East Coast, the West Coast of the U.S. and much of the Rockies will be warmer than average, along with Alaska. Near-normal temps will prevail in Hawaii. 

Along with this warmth in the eastern U.S., we do expect a wet May, which could mean a good amount of thunderstorm activity. Near- to below-average rainfall is expected from the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley westward to the Upper Midwest and Heartland, as well as the northern Plains and northern Rockies. Wetter weather will get suppressed farther south from the southern Plains back through the Desert Southwest. The West Coast will generally be on the drier side. 

Canadian Weather Forecast for May 2024

Above-average temps will be found from the Maritimes through Quebec and in the North-west Territories, while they will be near to below-average temperatures across central and western Canada. Above-average precipitation is forecast from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick back through Quebec, Ontario, the Northwest Territories, and the southern Yukon. Near- to below-average precipitation looks likely throughout much of central and western Canada.

→ See the 2-month forecast for your region.

May 2024 Holiday Weather

• May 4 will feature the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, where it looks to be a warm afternoon with the potential for some showers during the “Run for the Roses.” 

• Mother’s Day will come up on the 12th, when showers may arrive along much of the East Coast. The Great Lakes and Ohio Valley will soak in some sunshine on a mild day. Some rain will move across parts of the Upper Midwest, with May thunderstorms rolling through the Heartland and Deep South. Sunshine is expected across Texas, Oklahoma, and the West Coast, while some showers will be showing up in the Rockies. Canada will also be showery in Atlantic Canada, Southern Ontario, the Prairies, and southwestern British Columbia, with some snowflakes perhaps still flying across the Northwest Territories.
• For Victoria Day in Canada on May 20, showers will move across Quebec and the Maritimes, while some sunshine will favor locales from Ontario back through the Prairies. There may be a couple of showers from British Columbia up into southern parts of the Yukon.

• Back in the U.S.,  Memorial Day long weekend on May 25–27 will be hot and largely dry across the West for the unofficial start of summer, with just a couple of isolated showers in the Rockies. Much of the Plains will be sunny and warm, although some t-storms may fire up across portions of Oklahoma and Texas. Showers and thunderstorms are also expected across much of the mid-Atlantic, Appalachians, Southeast, and Florida, while sunshine will be common from New England back through the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.

Hurricane Season Approaches

As we look ahead to May, the tropical season will not be too far behind. The Atlantic hurricane season gets underway on June 1, although May storms have become more common in recent years. In the past 10 years, tropical storms have formed during May in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 (when there were two May storms) and 2021. 

The strong El Niño that has been in place in recent months has pretty much peaked, so we expect the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) to turn neutral by late in the spring and perhaps even back to a La Niña by later in the summer. 

This would lead to the potential for an active season in the Atlantic. Our main area of concern will be in the Gulf Coast states, where we’re watching for a hurricane to strike Florida or the Southeast in late August and along the Gulf Coast in early July and early September. There will also be the potential for a tropical storm to hit parts of Texas and the Deep South on a couple of occasions from July to September. 

We’ll also have to watch for a tropical storm along the mid-Atlantic coast in late August. This year will likely end up more active than 2023, which was relatively quiet for much of the Atlantic basin as far as direct U.S. impacts went—although Hurricane Hilary in the Eastern Pacific basin did bring record-setting rains to parts of the Southwest in August. 

It’s important to keep in mind that the number of storms in any given year does not directly coincide with how many storms make landfall. Our go-to example for this is the 1992 hurricane season, which had only seven named storms in the Atlantic. The first storm, Andrew, didn’t form until mid-August—but ended up causing more than $26 billion in damage. 

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