Transition into Springtime Complete
By Russell Russ

Our April began with cool temperatures, ice on many ponds, snow on the ground and maple sap continuing to flow. Things changed quickly. By the second week of the month, the maple syrup season came to a close, the ice went out on the local lakes and ponds and the temperatures slowly began to rise.

Tobey Pond and Wangum Lake lost their ice for the season on April 9. This was nearly a month later than last year, but just about average historically. Our last trace of snow was gone by around April 12. Unlike last year’s incredible early warmth, this year was pretty much normal.

April’s low temperature of 23 degrees was observed on both April 2 and 3. The high of 72 degrees was observed on April 24. With an average temperature of 43.3 degrees, it was just 0.2 degree above normal. There were no temperature records set this month.

The total precipitation recorded for the month was 1.70 inches. It was our seventh driest April in the last 82 years. Through April, our total precipitation for the year was 10.07 inches. We are down 6.5 inches in just four months, so early 2013 has definitely been on the dry side. April’s snowfall total was just 0.2 inches. This was six inches below normal, but it is fairly common to have no snowfall or very little in April.

It is not looking like this May will bring any snow, so the snowfall total for 2013 is now at 53.8 inches, 12.3 inches below normal for this time period. Our 2012-2013 winter season snowfall total was 75.7 inches, about 15 inches below normal, but not record setting in any way. For the record, the first frozen precipitation was observed November 2 and the last was on April 14. We did have a decent snowpack this winter, but our rain and snowfall deficit may prove troublesome as we head later into the year.

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