Lilac Festival Outlook (and look at the past)

Written by: Bob Metcalfe

It's officially here, the 2008 Lilac Festival! As a native Rochestarian, I will say that this festival is by far one of the largest and most interesting festivals of the entire season. So much to do, see, and of course eat. But its funny, when talking to most people, they usually associate the Lilac Fest with cold and dreary weather. So I decided to take a look back at previous mid-May timeframes. Although the dates may not correspond to a T, they give you the gist of the weather for those years.

2007-Pretty good actually. On two occasions we reached 80 or above, with three days of 70+. Four days were in the 50s and 60s. Rain-wise, we were quite dry, with only 0.20" over a 10 day spread.

2006- Definitely cooler than 2007, but not "cold". No 80 degrees here, but three days of 70. The rest of the days were in the 50s or 60s as well, with a pretty decent amount of rain, especially from two days with thunderstorms, bringing the rain total over 10 days to 1.25"!

2005- Get this... it went from 84 degrees to 48 degrees in just two days! Yikes! The rest of the time was split with few 70s and a majority 50s/60s split. Rain equaled to 0.68"

2004- Warm! Five 80+ degree days, only one day of thunderstorms that was responsible for a majority of the 0.5" of rain we received.

So there's past, now how about the future? As of now, a showery start Monday will be quickly followed by nice warm/sunny weather Tuesday and Wednesday. Cooler weather is certainly looking like a good bet by next weekend. So the moral of this story? It's likely that 2008 will go down without a single 80 degree day. But hey, at least we're staying dry (for the most part!)