Historic month locally & nationally
April has been a historic month across central New York and across the country. The loss of life and property damage has been extreme. Tornadoes were confirmed in Danby and Frankfort on Thursday April 28th during the pre-dawn hours. Flash flooding occurred the same day across many counties due to a record amount of rainfall for the month and the intense amount of torrential rain during the prior overnight. Earlier that week on Tuesday April 26th, a tornado was confirmed near the Rome area and the greater Syracuse area, including portions of I-81 were closed due to flooding.
Nationwide, the Storm Prediction Center, which keeps a watchful eye on impending severe thunderstorms and tornados, tallied up the storm reports for the month of April. Check out this link to see all of the tornado, wind, and hail reports in graphical form. This link shows the April 26th-28th outbreak, plus a comparison to other months and years.
Back locally, let’s break down the newest numbers from Syracuse Hancock International Airport for the month of April.
Let’s start with temperatures first. If you averaged out all of the high and low temperatures for the month and compared them to normal, then April 2011 was well above normal! March 2011 had a mean temperature of 49.2°. That was 3.9° warmer than normal.
As mentioned before, April was a record breaker when it came to rainfall. Hancock Airport received a total of 8.53” of rain. That broke the old record of 8.12” set back in 1976. There were 18 days of measurable rain. There were 13 days when it rained at least 0.10” (5 days above normal). There were 8 days when it rained at least 0.50” (6 days above normal).
Snowfall was below normal when compared to other Aprils on record since 1950. Syracuse Hancock Airport has received only 0.4” of snow for April 2011. April’s average snowfall, would you believe, is actually 4.8”. We lucked out not getting too much snowfall this past month.
For more on your weather forecast, click on "Weather" and then the "Live Triple Doppler Radar" tab on our weather page. Make sure you refresh the Doppler radar to see the very latest information, as well. Furthermore, we have our new Interactive Doppler Radar on our website. You can zoom down to street level with Interactive Doppler Radar. You are in total control of where the radar can zoom in. Give it a try. Plus, click on our Severe Weather Tab and our Watches and Warnings map to see the very latest county specific watches and warnings. In addition, you can become my facebook friend here, and "follow" along with me on Twitter here.
