Why has D.C.’s weather been so awful this month?

There’s a very simple explanation. The storm track has been stuck over the Mid-Atlantic, continuously cycling weather system after weather system through the region — like a conveyor belt.

The jet stream, the high altitude river of air along which storms usually track, has pointed at and run through the Mid-Atlantic throughout the month.

It is perfectly normal for the D.C. area to be caught in the jet stream’s meandering flow during May. In fact, May is D.C.’s wettest month on average, because the jet routinely zips through the region. But usually, this so-called atmospheric super highway is not fixed on the region for weeks on-end, but on the move.

The jet stream is powered by temperature contrasts, flowing fastest where warm and cool air collide. So when much of southern and central United States start to turn summery as May wears on, its average position shifts toward the northern U.S. Once that shift occurs, D.C. tends to have more warm, sunny days, and fewer cool, damp days.

This May, however, the usual northern jog of the jet stream hasn’t yet occurred in the Mid-Atlantic, although it’s right around the corner. While it’s tempting to try to find an explanation for this, there isn’t one.

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The specific configuration and position of the jet stream in any given year at a given location is somewhat random. Last year, it moved north of the Mid-Atlantic at the very beginning of May and highs were in the 80s for almost the entire month. Very little rain fell.

Sometimes certain atmospheric patterns like El Nino can stack the deck for certain jet stream configurations, but there’s no clear association between El Nino and cool, wet Mays in D.C.

This May’s relentless rainy, cool pattern is best attributed to bad luck, in my view.

If you’re curious just how rainy, cloudy and cool this month has been, I’ve compiled some very telling statistics below …

The rain

D.C. has recorded at least a trace of rain on 19 of 23 days in May and, if we include late April, 23 of the last 27 days. 5.04 inches of rain has fallen since the beginning of May, and 5.68 inches since April 27.

From April 27 to May 11, D.C. logged measurable rainfall on 15 straight days, the longest streak on record by five days.

This May, measurable rain (at least 0.01 inches) has fallen on 18 days, most on record month-to-date (three days ahead of 1953, the May with next most rainy days). If measurable rain falls on three more days this month, that would mark the most rainy days on record in May, passing 2003’s 20 days.

The clouds

D.C. has had overcast conditions at noon 77 percent of the time this May, the highest fraction on record and way above the normal of 32 percent.

The cold