Already 60F before noon, it’s going to be another great day here in southern Maine. There are several aspects of the weather of interest on this mid-April morning not least of which is the stunning day we are enjoying. April can be such a miserable month. There are years where it rains for days on end or it’s cold or we don’t see much sunshine. While the beginning of the month started chilly and even brought a touch of snow, once that spring switch was flipped, there’s been no looking back.

So Long Snow
The record snow depths have all but disappeared in so much of New England. The lack of flooding shows it’s less about how much snow is on the ground and more about how quickly it melts. Even more importantly is how much rain falls during the melting. It’s been someone dry the past 6 weeks and this allowed a very controlled loss of the snow cover.

There is still some deep snow in places this morning most notably northern and eastern areas. Check out some of the numbers. Mount Mansfield, east of Burlington, Vermont continues to be the king of snow depth. It will be interesting to see when that finally disappears.

While we didn’t see any major river flooding this spring, we are not the only part of the country to see less than typical severe weather. The number of tornadoes continues to hover around all-time record lows. The two charts below really put into perspective just how far under the recorded averages the tornado count has been the past several years.

Quiet Tropics And Tornado Alley
While it’s not hurricane season yet, it’s also worth mentioning it’s been nearly 10 years since a major hurricane has reached the shores of the United States. This is the longest “drought” of a major hurricane strike since records started being kept back in 1900. If there is a connection between the lack of tornadoes and hurricanes it hasn’t been proven, yet.

These facts about severe weather will hopefully help put perspective on what you see or read from some media outlets that tend to overemphasize each individual occurrence of a tornado, severe thunderstorm, flood or hurricane.

Fantastic Fenway Weather
The Red Sox have an afternoon game today in Boston at Fenway Park and if you are going, it will be comfortably warm in the lower 60s, but feel much warmer in the sun which is as strong as the end of August! Sun protection is a must this time of year.

A Bit Too Dry
The dry weather does have a downside. There are red flag (high fire danger) warnings for much of New England today. This is because the understory has greened up just yet and the lack of significant rain has left lots of dry grass and leaves, very susceptible to brush fires.

The dry and sunny continues will last through tomorrow. More clouds and showers are in the forecast Friday and Saturday. It doesn’t look like much rain will fall. The next chance of significant rain arrives Monday. This is of course the day the marathon is run. The timing of the rain isn’t known right now. It might be that the start of the race is dry, but we do see rain by the afternoon. I can guarantee this, there won’t be any heat for this year’s running.

I’ll update the forecast for the weekend the Patriot’s Day here and on Twitter @growingwisdom

Follow @growingwisdom

Skiing Anyone?
Finally, if you interesting in some spring skiing, besides the mountains still open here in Maine (Sunday River expects to stay open to May 2nd), parts of the Rockies are going to be pelted by a big spring storm. They didn’t get much snow all winter and for this might be the most snow they’ve see all season.

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