State of the Climate - April 2013

Winter lingers into April, or at least that's what the data looks like! As you know, we didn't really get our winter here until March and April, so it shouldn't be too surprising to know that many cold and snow records were set during the month. Here are a few of the highlights from the latest "State of The Climate" report.

• April's average temperature was 1.4°F below the 20^th century average. April 2013 ranked as the 23^rd coolest such month on record and marked the coolest April since 1997 when the monthly average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 48.0°F.

• North Dakota had its coldest April on record with a statewide average temperature of 31.0°F, 9.9°F below average. Six additional states — South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Wisconsin — each had a top ten cold April.

• The April average precipitation for the contiguous U.S. was 2.90 inches, 0.47 inch above average, and tied with 1953 as the 19^th wettest April on record.

• The Northwest, Midwest, and the Southeast were wetter than average. Iowa and Michigan both had their wettest April on record. The Iowa statewide average precipitation total of 6.71 inches was 3.76 inches above average; the Michigan precipitation total of 5.97 inches was 3.29 inches above average. Additionally, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin each had one of the ten wettest Aprils on record.

• Several storms impacted the U.S. bringing record-breaking, late-season snowfall to central United States. According to data from the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the April snow cover extent for the contiguous U.S. was approximately 480,000 square miles, 209,000 square miles above the 1981-2010 average and the 5^th largest April snow cover extent in the 47-year period of record. However, dismal snowpack continued in parts of the West, with only 18 percent of normal snowpack reported in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

• On a local basis, over three times as many record cold highs and lows occurred than record warm highs and lows. Approximately 3,430 record low temperatures and about 4,050 record cool daily high temperatures were tied or broken. In comparison, approximately 690 record warm daily high temperature records and 1,570 record warm daily low temperatures were tied or broken. (These numbers are preliminary and are expected to change as more data arrive.)

You can read the entire report here, including a breakdown by region.

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