Editorial: Northern Ireland is at its best in a sunny month of May

​This week Northern Ireland is set for magnificent weather – and we will all get a reminder what a wonderful place it is to live in or visit.

​Last Saturday this paper was reflecting on the disappointing weather at the Balmoral Show but how it was a bustling success even so. We are well used to poor weather on these islands, and just get on with things.

But one of the by-products of often grey and chilly weather is that we savour the sun when it appears, as it is due to do in force towards the tail end of this coming week.

May is actually the sunniest month of the year, not in an sunshine hours – that often happens in June or July, which have more daylight hours and more opportunities for sun – but in percentage terms. It is the only month of the year when it is sunny almost 40% of daytime.

And ‘daytime’ is a very long time in May, which leads into the longest days of the year in June. While the sun currently rises after 5am and sets at 930pm, the first and last of the light is already before 430am and after 10pm. Vegetation is almost in full bloom.

There are many events on too, as summer comes in. We are reporting on the Tall Ships for the Invictus at the front of the paper. We have also reported this week on a joyful royal visit, in which the king and queen lifted people’s spirits on their various visits to Belfast and beyond. Last weekend the Red Bull race was so popular it caused traffic chaos. There was also a huge Jesus march. All of this days after the North West 200 biking extravaganza (albeit marred this year by a tragic death). There is so much more going on around the province.

Meanwhile, the serious matter of climate change will cause real challenges here in NI, as elsewhere, but with our exceptionally mild pre-existing climate we are better placed to withstand it than many – perhaps most – other parts of the planet.