(KNSI) – A record high in mid-April may have saved us from the severely cold early spring that we saw in 2022.
Last year, the fourth month of the year clocked in at a whopping six degrees below average. National Weather Service Meteorologist Melissa Dye says the departure from the norm was about half that for this year.
“We ended up just shy of about three degrees below normal, despite those warmer days. We did get up to 86 there on the 13th.”
April was a bit of a mud puddle, though. We started the month with 12 inches of snow still on the ground and received 3.74″ of rain, which is over an inch more than normal. You can tack on about 4.4″ of the white stuff to that total, which is essentially average.
Dye says a heavy snowpack kept us cool early in the month. Following that brief jump to record levels, we went back to cold. Dye says to blame Wisconsin and Michigan. That shouldn’t be too hard for Gopher fans.
“Later in the month, though, it was just kind of this pattern that we got stuck in where we had constant low pressure over the Great Lakes and it was blocking any warmer air from making it our way.”
Dye says the warmer weather this week is not a mirage. Spring is finally here. Models show the warmth sticking around. Wet weather will return as early as this weekend but Dye expects it to generally be light and scattered.
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