April was a crazy month with a freezing rainstorm at the beginning and record warm temperatures in the middle. The month ended up warm and wet, although no overall records were set.
Despite cooler temperatures in the last half of the month, the average temperature stayed above normal by nearly a degree and a half (Celsius) for the entire month. The average temperature for April was 8 degrees Celsius, considerably above the normal of 6.5 C. The culprit for that increase was the period of April 10-16, when daytime temperatures soared to summertime levels and the night-time lows stayed where the daytime highs would normally be.
The rains continued in the last week of the month with another 20 millimetres descending throughout, bringing total precipitation to 95 mm for the month, which is about 10 per cent above normal. However, with the deluge that came down during the night of April 30 and the morning of May 1, another 30 mm was added to the rain gauge, officially making April a wet month with 125 mm of precipitation.
The wet conditions have brought fieldwork on the farms to a halt, and the rain and showers forecast for the first few days of May will keep the tractors in their sheds for at least another week. Flowers, however, are in bloom everywhere, and a few crab apple trees have begun to flower – spring has finally sprung!
The forecast for May is on the cool side, with daytime highs only starting to exceed 20 C in the last week of the month. Of course, that’s what the forecast for April said, only for there to be some very warm temperatures in the middle of the month; so, time will tell.
