Fourth wettest April on record 

By Russell Russ

Here are the weather highlights from April as recorded at Norfolk’s National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Observer Station, Norfolk 2 SW, by the Great Mountain Forest Corporation. Norfolk 2 SW has recorded weather observations since January 1, 1932.

The month’s high temperature of 82 degrees was observed on April 23. This was a record high temperature for that date. It replaced the old record of 79 degrees set back in 1996. The low temperature of 17 degrees was observed on April 7. The average temperature this month was 41.3 degrees which was 1.3 degrees below normal. On April 11 the ice went out on both Tobey Pond and Wangum Lake. Last year the ice went out between March 28 and March 30. Typically, the ice goes out sometime between late March and the first or second week of April.

The total precipitation recorded for the month was 7.62 inches. This was 3.18 inches above normal making this April the fourth wettest April in the last 75 years. For the record, April 1983 was first with 10.79 inches, followed by April 1987 with 8.65 inches and April 1996 with 8.20 inches. The nor’easter that hit the area on April 15 ended up dumping 4.95 inches of total precipitation; included in this total was the 3.5 inches of heavy wet snow that came at the start of the storm. The 4.5 inches of snowfall recorded for the month was 2.6 inches below the normal monthly snowfall amount.

Thanks to April’s rains, the total precipitation for 2007 through April is 18.07 inches which is 1.43 inches above normal. The 2007 snow total of 42.5 inches is 26.6 inches below normal. This is potentially record-setting for least amount of snowfall for a calendar year, but we must wait for this coming November and December to get our 2007 totals.

Our winter season (October through April) snowfall total was just 44.0 inches. Comparing this winter season to the last 75 years we were 52.1 inches below normal, ranking 2006-2007 as the season with the third least amount of snowfall. The least amount of snowfall for a winter season was 40.9 inches recorded in 1994-1995, followed by 43.7 inches recorded in 1991-1992.