April is in the books and it was a couple of degrees warmer on both ends of the daily observations. I had a mere 1.81 inches of rain in the bucket, no snowfall, and frankly a nice April.I am a bit nervous about the rainfall totals as we started off with a wet January but are now again trending down. I'm running at -6.34 inches for the calendar year thus far.
Temps were surprisingly flat for April which is a month that typically rides the spring roller coaster. There was one classic spring 'coaster' moment following the monthly high of the warmest day; a beautiful 75.1° on the 17th under lovely sunshine, the 18th had a high of just 53° at 22.1° plunge. The coolest daytime high was a chilly but not cold for April 47.2° on the first of the month. The coldest morning low arrived on the 13th with a cool 35.1°. Outlying areas saw frost. The warmest overnight low was a moderate 51.2° on the 29th. April gave us 20 days at 60° or better, 3 days failed to hit 50°, and we had 4 days at 70° or more.
The rain bucket wasn't busy last month with just 8 days of rain against 11 days of sunshine. Just 4 days saw a quarter inch or more rain. The wettest day was the 5th of April with a 1/2 inch of rain. I'm a bit nervous about the mountain snow pack. Silver Star Mountain (4364') has barely any snow at all and that suggests that mid-elevation snow is well below average.
That snow pack provides ample water through the dry season for both hydro-electric power generation as well as keeping it green through mid-summer. Green is good as it helps shorten the fire season and keeps things extra pretty during our glorious summer. Higher up int he mountain Timberline at 5900 feet is reporting 128" of snow pack which may seem like a lot but not really.
I posted the final snow fall report on the website here. Snowfall in May is highly unlikely so my official 2019-2020 snow season is well below average at 5 inches. That said mountain snow can and routinely does fall in May and even June so there is still hope to pad those pack numbers before summer.
