From Deep Snow to Black Flies

By Russell Russ

Spring finally arrived in April. It’s amazing to think that in just this one month we went from maple syrup season, 16-inches of snow on the ground and all ponds fully iced over to springtime warmth with peepers and black flies.

Syrup season was over after the first week of April, and local lakes and ponds were ice-free by April 17. The final traces of snow were gone by April 16, peepers were out by April 17 and black flies were annoying us by month’s end. April is truly our big transition month.

April’s low temperature of 21 degrees was observed on April 2. The high of 72 degrees was observed on April 18. With an average temperature of 42.8 degrees, it was just 0.3 degree colder than average. So far, the first four months of 2015 have all been colder than normal. There were no daily temperature records set this month.

The total precipitation recorded for the month was 3.52 inches. This was 0.75 inch below normal. Through April, our total precipitation for the year was 12.60 inches, 3.79 inches below average. There were three thunderstorms observed this month. We are starting to build a rainfall deficit, so we need to pick up some rain over the next month or two.

There was just 1.0 inch of snowfall in April which made it 5.0 inches below average for the month. As the result, our 2014-2015 winter season snowfall total was a very average 91.9 inches (just 1.4 inches above normal for snowfall). We had snow for Thanksgiving which stayed around until Christmas. After just a week of no snow cover there was then constant snow on the ground from early January until April 16. Many locations were snowless in early April, but it hung around at the weather station until mid-month. For comparison, Norfolk’s 2013-2014 winter season snowfall total was 82.5 inches.

If you were hoping for some warm weather, you certainly got it in May. The first half of May was warmer than average, and continued our dry spell. As Norfolk Now goes to print, we are way below normal for rain. On the plus side, at least we won’t be dealing with snow for quite a few months.

Weather observations are recorded by the Great Mountain Forest Corporation at Norfolk’s National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Observer Station, Norfolk 2 SW.