April was no March, that’s for sure. We had hugely warm temperature departures in March to the tune of 15 degrees across the area. April still turned out modestly warmer than normal however.
In Wausau, the average high was 57.5 degrees, 2.7 degrees above normal. The average low was 34.5 degrees, 1.2 degrees above normal. We had a good 15 nights of frost in central and northern Wisconsin which is nothing unusual for April around here. However it was of great concern this year because plant development was much ahead of normal due to the warm March. That’s why Freeze Warnings were issued on so many nights. The National Weather Service usually doesn’t issue them until May 1st or so in our area. By the way the highest temperature this April in Wausau was 75 degrees on the 15th. The coldest was 26 degrees on the 6th. We had several nights with lows in the 10s in the TV-9 viewing area.
As far as precipitaton goes, we picked up 2.44″ of moisture. That’s about .29″ less than usual. We also had 1.5″ of snow in Wausau, which is 2.6″ below normal. The snow primarily fell on the evening of the 19th into the morning of the 20th. There were some isolated 3 to 5″ reports with that storm over in parts of Langlade, Menomonee, and Shawano Counties.
Unlike April of 2011, there was virtually no severe thunderstorm activity in the region. Well, I hope you enjoyed April. Let’s see what May has up her sleeve!
Posted under Monthly Recap, Spring
This post was written by Tony Schumacher on April 30, 2012
It might have came out above normal , but half of the highs and just over the half of the lows were below normal. Most of the below days were towards the middle and the end. Going into spring this makes it that much worse that we had below normal temperatures as far as getting things to grow. What I think it really illustrates is when a period of time is said to be above normal, is it really? With plant growth essentially at a stand still for the entire month, it sure does not look or feel like it was above normal.
Your right Ray, numbers can be funny. It would have been easier on plant life if it would have stayed cold in March and the first part of April, then warmed up steadily. Unfortunately weather doesn’t usually work that way around the Upper Midwest.