Warmer & Drier Weather with Temperatures Up to 35°C in Last 2 Weeks of May

Ready your air-cons, your electricity bills, and your anesthesia against environmental conscience, warriors! The battle against nature continues in the last two weeks of May!

Warmer & Drier Weather for the Last 2 Weeks of May

Ironically, as I write this, it’s raining cats and dogs outside our office. But days like these will be far and few between for the next few weeks, it seems; I’ve been sweating just by doing nothing these days.

And according to Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS), it’s going to continue to be hot and dry for the rest of May. 

So if you enjoy burning weather and making puns that the day is so hot because of you, yay! If you are a climate change denier, also yay because you are finally being educated by real life.

The MSS expects temperatures to vary between 24°C and 34°C on most days, with possibilities they will rise above 35°C. Not so yay.

In comparison, the first half of May saw an average daily minimum temperature of 25.4°C and a maximum of 32.2°C. The highest temperature recorded was 35.7°C at Marina Barrage.

Wind conditions are also likely to bring warm and humid air from the sea to heat up our evenings: because water retains heat more easily than land, landward wind can raise night temperatures to as high as 28°C.

But with enough carbon dioxide emissions, it can always be 24°C. Or 16°C. 

Drier conditions are likely to contribute to the higher temperature: the monsoonal rain band is expected to shift further north past Singapore, bringing rainfall away from the island. 

The rain band is a, well, band of clouds that forms where monsoon winds converge and where solar heating is the strongest. In May, as the northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun, sunlight directly strikes and heats up locations further north, generating rainfall there instead of strictly along the equator.

However, wind from the southwest may bring Sumatra squalls to Singapore, which are lines of thunderstorms that form over the Sumatran mountains, gather additional moisture over the Straits of Malacca, and bring copious rainfall to Singapore at dawn and in the mornings. 

Because there is no better way to start your day than by getting wet on your way to work. Oh wait—that’s not a thing anymore.

Heavy daytime heating is also expected to bring short-duration rainfall in the afternoon on some days, when humid air rises when heated and reaches colder altitudes where it condenses and forms clouds.

Basically, that means it’s still going to rain at any time of the day, albeit less often. 

Feature Image: Chayathorn Lertpanyaroj / Shutterstock.com