May will start out with a nice summer-like warm day into the 80s. The week begins with some July love but quickly will turn back to spring showers and some minor t-boomers later in the week.
As for April how about those heat waves. Seriously, a heat wave in April is not unusual but notable, but two heat waves in April, WOW! Daily records were falling like autumn leaves this past month.
The high for the month came on the 18th with a personal all time April mark of 91.6 and that appears to have been the all time April mark for the 'Couv' dating back to the 19th century! That was the only 90 plus mark for the month, of course. That 91.6 came second in a series of four consecutive days above 80 degrees. That was second group of 80 plus days the first group a back to back pair on the 7th and 8th with a near 90 mark of 88.7 on the 7th. 2016 begins rather ominously as last year was a record for 90 plus days in many Greater Portland Metro communities. I had 18 90 'plussers' last year about double my local average. The first of those 18 came in June and this year I have one logged already in April. Oh boy. The warmest overnight low did not follow the hot 91.6 day, but came on the morning of the 20th with a mark of 50.9 degrees.
On the chilly side of the month there isn't much to report. In fact not a single morning was below the ice making mark. The coolest came on the morning of the 16th with a chilly but not at all uncommon 36.3 degrees one of just four mornings that managed to chill into the 30s. Every single day in the month of April was able to warm above the 50 degree comfort mark with the chilliest afternoon the 14th hitting 51.6 degrees.
Overall April 2016 was much warmer than average. the observed average low was a hefty 3.5 degrees above my established norms and the observed highs were a crazy 7 degrees warmer than average thanks to not one, but two heat waves.
Rainfall was well under normal for me with a dry 2.21 inches in the bucket against my more typical 4.24 inches. We had a few days with thunderstorms and some localized heavy rain was present. That should create wide variances in rainfall totals at local weather stations. The rain for the year has been solid with a four month start of 20.58 inches and a season to date (Oct, 2015 to date) of a dripping wet 49.66 inches. Holy soggy soil Batman, that's a whole bunch of water!
There is a heavy layer of snow on the high Cascade peaks but very little remains on the local foothills. In fact there is just one tiny little patch clinging to life on the very tip of Silver Star (4364 ft). There is a good chance that won't survive the next two days. As for late season skiing? It should be solid, Timberline lodge is reporting a May 1st base at the lodge (6000 ft) of 121 inches. Up higher the last Snow Cat data about a month ago reported over 67 FEET of snow depth at Bean's Run (7326 feet).
Let's all shout out a welcome to the merry month of May. There is a high probability that freezing weather is firmly planted in the rear view mirror and that warmer days lie ahead. May is almost as fickle as March and April so we likely won't finish this month without some noteworthy weather bumps, but the gorgeous days of summer now await on the near horizon.
