Submitted by Bill Caulfeild-Browne
Many people have complained to me that it’s been a very cold spring. I agree that it felt that way, but in fact April was only 0.3C below normal. The real problem is that April over the last decade has generally been warmer than normal and we’ve come to expect it to be that way.
Even so, this month was the first in nearly two years that was cooler than the historic average. We’ve had twenty straight months of above average temperatures. But 0.3C is well within one standard deviation so it shouldn’t be considered much of an outlier.
The warmest day on Big Tub Harbour was the 28th at 18.4C, though it was warmer back from the lake. This is the time of year those welcome cooler breezes in the summer are not so welcome in spring! The coldest the mercury sank to was -9.1C on the 8th. Precipitation was 49mm, a bit drier than usual – and much drier than last April’s record-setting 157mm.
There were several major weather events. None of us will forget the severe ice storm of April 2nd-3rd which damaged thousands of trees and left nearly a quarter million Hydro One customers without power. Miraculously there were no deaths attributed to the storm.
Both Ottawa and Sudbury suffered snow storms and white-outs with accompanying road closures in storms on the 7th and 8th. Then to add insult to injury there were thunderstorms and damaging winds through Southern Ontario at the end of the month – which the Peninsula narrowly avoided as the storm track ran just south of us.
To end on a positive note – this April was the second sunniest of the last decade. Over half the days were fully sunny and only three or four were completely dull. And Environment Canada thinks that May might be warmer than usual. Keep your fingers crossed!
