Today in New York Weather History - May 20
1978 (Saturday)
Today's high of 90° was the first reading of 90°+ this year. It came just three days after three days in a row (5/15-17) had highs in the 50s. The next 90-degree day wouldn't be for another month (6/19).
1995 (Saturday)
The day after overcast skies and a high of 58°, today was sunny with a balmy high of 80°.
1996 (Monday)
Today saw the first reading of 90°+ this year. And at 96°, a record for the date, it would also be the hottest reading of the year. After today, there would be only two more days with highs in the 90s.
2000 (Saturday)
Today's rainy and raw conditions made the five-day heat wave of May 5-9 a distant memory. Today's high was just 51° - twenty-one degrees chillier than average. By contrast, the high on May 9 was 93°, twenty-four degrees above average.
2002 (Monday)
This morning's chilly low of 43° was a record for the date. (Yesterday was even chillier, at 41°, but it wasn't a record.) This was one month after an early heat wave between 4/16-19 that saw highs of 92°-96°-91°-89°.
2017 (Saturday)
Today's high of 65° was 26 degrees cooler than yesterday - the biggest drop in temperature following a day in the 90s since 1988 (when the high of 63° on 6/2 was 27 degrees cooler than the day before).
2018 (Sunday)
It was warm and on the humid side, with a high of 81° - which was 25 degrees warmer than yesterday's high. This was the reverse of what happened last year on this date.
2019 (Monday)
One month after the year's first reading in the 80s (4/19), today had the second high temperature in the 80s. And at 85°, the high was the warmest in more than eight months (when it was 93° on 9/5).
2023 (Saturday)
A 14-day streak with sunny or clear skies ended today as rain soaked the City mostly during the afternoon. The 0.77" that was measured in Central Park was nearly double the amount that fell in the first 19 days of the month. Rain totals on Long Island, Westchester County and in Connecticut were much higher than NYC's, with many towns picking up between 1.50" and 2.50".
the low in 2018 was 56° for the fourth day of the past five and the one day that didn't have a low of 56° had a high of 56°, which was yesterday. interestingly, last May, at a similar time of the month, also had a four day streak with lows of 56°.
Posted by: William | 05/21/2018 at 04:28 AM
1993 is the only May in which the temperature went no lower than fifty degrees at any point during the first twenty days of the month.
Posted by: William | 10/26/2018 at 10:10 AM
also noteworthy is that 2019's weather came exactly one week after a high/low of 48/42. 2019's low of 66° was the warmest low temp since October 11 when the low was 69°.
Posted by: William | 05/21/2019 at 08:00 AM