If you feel the temperature swings have been a little extreme lately, you're not alone!  We had a high of 50° about a week ago and today, we hit 84°!  8 out of the last 9 days of April had below average temperatures and then, the first day of May arrives with much warmer than average temperatures and the return of... humidity -- which only makes it feel that much hotter and stickier.  Look at how much warmer it was this afternoon compared to yesterday.

24 Hour Temperature Change

Despite some cooler than average temperature days to end the month of April, the month ended 1.5 degrees above average.  Now keep in mind, March ended a whopping 10° warmer than average!  The month of April was actually a little less than 2° warmer than March.  Typically March highs average 46° and April highs average close to 57°, so that means both March and April had similar average highs. 

April had 11 days below average.  Did you know that was the first time we had more than 10 days below average, since October 2011?  Another fun fact for you - with the month of April ending above average, now 12 out of the last 13 months have been above average.  That's pretty much a full year of above average temperatures!

Monthly Temperature departures

As for rain, it was pretty dry in April and has been for 2012.  April ended with a total 1.92" or rain, which was still 1.14" below average.  As for the year, well, we're still a little less than 5 inches below yearly rainfall. 

Since we didn't get as many April showers as we needed, we'll hope for more rain in May.  And after the well above average highs on this first day of May, maybe another month to add to the above-average- monthly- temperature- streak?  I think, after day one, it's a little early to start thinking about that. 

Happy May everyone!