April Showers and a heatwave!

April is in the books and not surprising, she was rather fickle and feisty. The month started out with a some chilly weather including lows below freezing and highs int eh middle 40s. That's chilly in April. But it didn't take long for Mr. Hyde to switch back to Dr. Jekyll and some nice spring weather presided over several days early in the month. Up and down and back and forth Miss Spring toyed with us in April. The showers we expect in April were a bit under the typical. Towards the end of the month Mr. Hyde emerged again and this time he was a bit 'hot' under the collar with the first 70° mark coming in at nearly eighty degrees and temperatures that would get into the middle to upper eighties.

On the thermometer we saw a seesaw of action. The coldest mark cam on the morning of April 3rd with a sub freezing 30.4° one of 11 days with lows in the 30s which is a bit many for this late in the year. The chilliest afternoon high was the day of the fool, April 1st when the mercury topped out at a nippy 46.8°. On the other end of the spectrum the warmest temperature was a toasty and very July-like 86.4° on the 26th. That hot day followed the first eighty plus mark of the year on the 25th when it was 82.9 and that followed the aforementioned first 70 when it was 79.7° on the 24th. The weird part was that the day after the scorcher only managed a high of 55.9°. What a quick departure from summer and back to "early" spring conditions. Average temps over the month were a tad above my 17 year average with 43.7° low and 60.84° high, 2 and 1 degree over respectively.

Nearly all of the month's rain came in the first half and only 2.8 inches hit the pan well shy of my typical 4.24 inches. Nary a flake of snow fell in the valley but there was quite a bit of low elevation snowfall for April with the local foothills getting several dustings over the month. The higher foothills such as Silver Star still have bits of winter clinging to the surface here in May. The wettest day was the 7th when I recorded 0.61 inches.

So far May is starting out rather cool and uneventful. The weather gang at NWS Portland seem to think some nice spring weather with highs in the low to mid 70s are coming up later this week. Springalicious!

Soak it up my friends, soak it up.

April Showers Were Light

The showery month of April is in the books and I had about half my typical April rainfall. I was delighted to post the first 80 degree mark of the season however so that was nice. April was all over the place with several warm days and a few chilly nights but no extremes really at all.

We managed to get all the way through the month of April with out ever dipping below the freezing mark. We got close a few times but I managed to stay above the whole way through. all but one day managed to get above 50 degrees as well.

The warmest day of the month was the 27th with a toasty 81.6 degrees as I said before, the first 80 plus mark of the season. The coldest temperature was recorded the morning of the 15th with a 33.2 mark on tax day! The warmest overnight low came on the same day as the warmest high with a low of 49.4 on the 27th. The coldest afternoon high arrived on the 14th with an almost 50 mark of 49.8 degrees. We enjoyed 8 sunny days, 12 with rain.

Speaking of rain. I only managed to record 2.15 inches for the whole of April and my typical mark is 4.24 inches. Only half as much as "normal". The wettest day was the 14th with 0.41 inches. We had several days with angry thunderstorms that dumped torrents of rain in isolated areas. Some areas nearby likely recorded an inch or so more than I did if they got hit with those cloudbursts.

The merry month of May is under way and I think we will see more and more of that big yellow orb so be sure to get outside and soak it up my friends, soak it up.