The May 2026 Edition
Every edition →Monthly
May ran a little cooler than usual and came in wetter than usual, and Five Mile Creek rose over the high water line once.
This edition was put together on September 15, 2026, after the month was over, from the records as they stood. Its calls were worked out by the same rule as every other month, from what was on file before each month began.
May along the creek
The average of the highs and lows came to 69.8 degrees, 1.7 degrees cooler than normal for May.
Our station measured 6.92 inches of rain, against a normal of 4.91 at the Birmingham airport. The wettest day was May 22, with 1.77 inches.
Weather logIt reached the high water line, 3.5 feet at Republic, on one day, in one separate rise.
Its highest reading, 4.18 feet on May 24, was lower than the 4.94 feet the creek reaches in a typical May since 2008.
The high water line is the one the masthead uses. It is not a flood stage, because this gauge does not have one.
Creek log13 species were recorded along the lower creek for the first time on file, among them Carolina Mantis, Eastern Narrow-mouthed Toad, and Black Kingsnake.
Nature WatchHow the calls did
Set against the same month in 1991 to 2020 at the Birmingham airport, May finished in the middle third for temperature and the dry third for rain.
NOAA's outlook, issued April 30, had no lean either way on temperature, so there was nothing to score.
FIVEMILE made no call for May, because the record had no clear lean after a warm April.
Since August 2014, NOAA's temperature outlook for these three towns has been right 62 times and missed 33 times, with no lean 45 times. FIVEMILE has not made a call yet since January 2026. A call made by guessing would be right about one time in three.
Blackberry winter is the old name for the cool spell that comes when the blackberries bloom, usually early to mid May.
It came this year: the airport got down to 41 degrees on May 3, 16 degrees under the normal low.
Tennessee Historical SocietyJune ahead
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center gives these three towns no lean either way on temperature, and a slight lean toward a wetter than normal June.
FIVEMILE has no call for June. After a middle May, the record has no clear lean.
FIVEMILE does not call rain. In the airport record a wet month is followed by a wet one no more often than chance would have it.
Normal highs at the Birmingham airport rise from 86 to 90 degrees over June, and normal rain for the month is 4.78 inches.
The days gain 6 minutes of daylight over June, from 14 hours and 15 minutes on the 1st to 14 hours and 21 minutes on the 30th.
The summer solstice comes on June 21.
AlmanacDates in June
Calendar →Gardendale Farmers Market
Brookside Town Council meeting
Jefferson County tornado siren test
Graysville City Council meeting
Cardiff City Council meeting
Five Mile Creek Rubber Duck Race
Electronics & Paper Shredding Drop-Off
Graysville City Council meeting
Summer Solstice
Where this comes from The month's weather is the FIVEMILE weather station. Normals, ranks, records and the thirds a month is scored in are the official National Weather Service record kept at the Birmingham airport since 1930, set against 1991 to 2020. The creek is the USGS gauge on Fivemile Creek near Republic. The outlook is the monthly outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, read at the middle of the three towns. The stories are the ones the news page ran, the sightings are iNaturalist's research grade records, and the dates are the calendar's. FIVEMILE's call is a rule written down in advance: it looks at how the month just gone finished and at what followed every earlier year that started the same way. Every sentence here was written ahead of time and filled in from those records, and no edition is changed after it runs.