May weather recap: Sunshine, dry spells, and a late deluge in Western Australia

As long stretches of clear May days become a memory, we bid farewell to an autumn that didn't quite behave the way it was supposed to.

Across the state, the month delivered bursts of sunshine, brief spells of rain and long stretches of dry skies that left many wondering when winter would finally arrive.

Take a look back at some of the amazing photographs sent in by ABC readers from across the state.

Dry days, clear skies

Instead of the grey soaking days that we'd typically see in late autumn, Perth was treated to several warm spells during May, until a few days out from winter.

While the first day of the month was our coldest maximum, with a top of 17.8 degrees Celsius in Perth, there were plenty of clear skies in the city and the southern parts, making for a foggy morning in Narrikup.

Our warmest Perth day was May 12, reaching 28.3C — up 5.8C from the average temperature — and that sat comfortably in the midst of a lovely stretch of days without rain.

There was, however, a bit of moisture about in Mundaring during a foggy dawn.

Little rain relief

While city residents may have welcomed the sunshine, the month was a challenging one for agricultural regions.

For grain growers and livestock producers, May rain is critical heading into winter.

But as the month progressed, farming communities saw cold fronts quickly weaken or slide south, delivering only patchy rainfall.

Chilly mornings

In classic autumn fashion, mornings across the southern half were cool and misty with overnight temperatures often dipping into the low single digits.

Towards the end of the month, places like Newdegate (-1C) and Collie (-2C) even dropped below freezing.

Warm conditions, stunning colours

We had some chilly mornings across the Perth metro area, followed by warm sunny afternoons that may have left you questioning your clothing choices.

As the days progressed, there were some stunning colours, with the sun turning red.

The colour change can occur after prescribed burns when the smoke haze scatters out shorter wavelength colours like blue, according to Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior meteorologist Jessica Lingard.

"When we have a lot of fire burning, you get all of that ash and smoke in the atmosphere that scatters all the blues and greens, so you get these beautiful reds, yellows, pinks and oranges, leading to beautiful sunset pictures," she said.

During other evenings, many took advantage of the warm conditions to make the most of the beach time they had left.

And during some slightly warmer mornings in Mandurah and Kalbarri, the horizon was kind on the eyes for some vibrant sunrises.

The southern half endured some very cool mornings, with most places starting their day with temperatures in the low single digits.

But that chilly weather clearly didn't stop some people from snapping a shot of the misty sunrises.

While we missed out on the autumn rain earlier in the month, fortunately we were treated to the usual orange and yellow hues on our trees.

Double rainbows, late deluge

By May 27, there had only been 11.8 mm of rain for the month, with 25 rain-free days.

We saw double rainbows after some of those mid-May rains, something that happens when sunlight is refracted through water droplets twice and is most likely in spring and autumn due to the sun's position.

And Ms Lingard has a fun fact about double rainbows: "The inner rainbow will be the primary rainbow, that will be the correct order of colours, red on the outside, purple on the inside — but the secondary rainbow, the colours are flipped, so you have red on the inside and purple on the outside."

On the topic of colours in the sky, this unique cloud was spotted in Mount Pleasant — it's an example of something known as cloud iridescence, a type of rainbow where light is refracted in the water droplets that make up the cloud, rather than the raindrops like a rainbow.

There was speculation it could have been the driest May recorded at Perth's Mount Lawley weather station, with the previous record being 17.8mm across the month in 2019.

But come May 28, a low-pressure system dropped 19.2mm on the city overnight, boosting rainfall figures.

Another 19.6mm fell on the city on May 31 as a wild weather system swept over southern WA — meaning Perth finished the month with 53.2mm in the gauge.

In spite of the late May deluge, the monthly figure remained well short of the month's average figure of 85.5mm.

And it was a trend seen throughout the state, with the BOM estimating 98 per cent of places received below-average rain.

Capel, Shannon, Rocky Gully and North Walpole were among the handful of spots bucking the trend.

Wild winds

Across the final days of May, a severe weather event felled trees, flooded roads and tore roofs from structures across the southern half of the state.

With the BOM describing it as the strongest storm system to hit south-west WA in almost 50 years, some wind records were broken on the final day of May, including Cape Naturaliste at 135 km/h, Busselton Jetty at 120km/h, Garden Island at 106km/h and Mandurah at 104km/h.