April is starting out with the potential to be quite toasty. Today is threatening to hit 80 degrees, we'll just have to see if our first 80 of the season comes just a few weeks on the heels of the first 70 which I recorded on March 19th.
One thing interesting about this past march was the rainfall. I had exactly normal precipitation down to the 100th an inch! what are the odds of that? I have averaged 5.52 inches over the last 16 years and I measured exactly 5.52 inches. That's kinda of cool. The month of March had no crazy weather events. Those of you that look at my raw data will see a data glitch showing a minus 22 degree morning on the 29th. That definitely did not happen, and in fact never has a temperature that low been recorded in the 'Couv' as our all-time record is -11. I am not sure what happened there but I went through the daily data and the lowest temp other than the glitch was only 31.5 that day.
OK now the meat of matter. The warmest day in march this year was a nice mild and frankly perfect 72.1 degrees. Studies have shown that the ideal air temperature for humans is... 72 degrees F. That 72.1 came on the very last day of March and was the second "perfect" high in a row with 71.8 recording on the 30th. The coldest overnight low was a respectably chilly 30 on the 17th for a crisp start to Saint Patrick's Day. That was one of only two mornings below freezing for March which is not that unusual for the transition from winter to spring. The warmest overnight low came on the 5th with a cool but comfy 48.4. The coldest daytime high was 45 degrees and it happened twice on the both the 8th and 14th of the month. 45 is a tad chilly for daytime high this late in the season but not at all irregular for March. March is fickle has Old Man Winter tries to cling to life before being swept away by the occasionally puckish, Miss Spring. It's like she is teasing us and the old guy. Here's a 45 day for you old man, followed by a 70. let's face it winter around here does not do 70 ;)
The month overall came in a touch above average with the observed averages at 41.5 and 56.05 for low and high respectively. This measured against a more 'normal' 38.01 and 54.71. There was no measurable snowfall and that is not unusual this late in the season. We had 20 days with lows below 40 and 2 below freezing. We had 8 days above 60 and 3 above 70. 21 days of measurable rain and 6 sunny days. 9 days with more than quarter inch of rain. The wettest day was 0.67 inches on the 9th.
Unless we have a rare mid spring snow event, the final snow chart of the 2015-2016 winter has been posted on the website.http://rodsager.com/weather/snowfall-2001-date.pdf
Get out and soak it up my friends, soak it up; but keep a light jacket handy as Miss Spring likes to tease.
