Ticker for April 24, 2018

                
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April 24, 2018     April 24, 2018     April 24, 2018     April 24, 2018


Marpril


It's not very often that our April ends up being cooler than March. It has
happened a time or two. Most recently in 2007 when March ended up with a statewide
average temperature of 58.3 degrees vs. April's 55.5 degrees. You all remember
March and April of 2007, right? I don't, but I'm not exactly the brightest bulb
in the shed. It's only happened one other time (1907, 59 degrees for March vs.
54.5 degrees in April), but we might be headed for a third stanza if Mother Nature
doesn't get spring in gear.

Through April 23, the statewide average according to the Oklahoma Mesonet is 52.1
degrees. Normal for that period is 58 degrees, so nearly 6 degrees below normal.
The low temperatures are driving that more than the highs, but both are well
below normal. And we're also flirting with our coldest April on record as well!

-***-
MaxT      MinT      AvgT
Statewide Avg. April 1-23        66.2      38.1      52.1
Normal, April 1-23               71.1      45.0      58.0
Departure                        -4.9      -6.9      -5.9
Lowest on record (1895-2017)     64.7      41.7      53.2
-****-

That record cold April with a statewide average of 53.2 degrees was from 1983.
The warmest April was 2006's 65.9 degrees.



As you can see, that's a pretty chaotic temperature trace. April, being a
transition month between winter and summer, is characteristically so. We
normally get our last freeze during April, our last snow, etc.

Speaking of freezing, I was thinking maybe a lot of Mesonet sites spent less
time below freezing in March than they did through April, even though April
still has a week to go. Sure enough!





I think in the end (no, not FROM my end) Mother Nature is going to give us
just enough oomph to get us over March's statewide avg. temperature. We're
not talking lots of May-like weather coming up. More like early April, judging
from this sampling from the Norman NWS forecast office.



But days like tomorrow, when we're socked in with glorious rain and clouds,
are going to keep it close. And the lows over the next few days don't give
me a lot of confidence.









But a cool April doesn't portend much for May, so all bets are off on next
month's prognostication. When we're in the depths of Muly (Mune? Maugust?),
you might wish for Marpril back.

Gary McManus
State Climatologist
Oklahoma Mesonet
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
(405) 325-2253
gmcmanus@mesonet.org