Submitted by Bill Caulfeild-Browne
April found it hard to decide if it was winter or spring. While there were only five days that didn’t get above freezing, there was no consistent warmth and relatively little sunshine. The mean temperature was almost a degree less than normal. The lowest the mercury shrank to was -3.8C on the 18th. The warmest day was the 24th when it climbed to 19.7C, though it was hotter away from the lakeshore.
With the exception of Northern Ontario, this pattern was typical of the rest of the province. Windsor was 2.0C below normal, London 1.1C down. Our rainfall, though, was higher than expected with 87 mm. against a norm of 65 mm. This was more like the North that had well above normal precipitation. Areas to the south of us had a drier April.
The middle of the month saw gusty winds of around 60 kms/hr and some of that precipitation I mentioned came as snow, making for some hairy driving conditions. We got off lightly compared to our more southerly neighbours – Port Colborne saw wind gusts as high as 109 km/hr. and nearly 200,000 Ontario homes lost power. Still, we got another dose of gales in the last week which caused damage locally, including some boat storage facilities.
May has started out quite cool but abundantly sunny. As I write this on the 10th, we’ve had seven straight days of bright sunshine with more forecast. The only downside is that we have had only 8 mm. of rain, making for a dry forest around us. I’m pleased that the Municipality is severely restricting fireworks – we’ve seen what climate change is doing with fires in the West and we don’t need that here.
