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Northeast Regional Climate Center |
For the third month in a row the Northeast was above normal in temperature. April began on the cool side across much of the region. Low pressure systems tracked northward along the coast allowing cold Canadian air to drop down into New England and New York and even further south on strong north winds. A change in the jet stream about mid-month led to a new storm track that brought storms well north of the region. With the storms up in Canada, plenty of warm air made its way north into the Northeast. The warm air was more than enough to balance the cold spell experienced early in the month. All 12 states in the region were above normal, making this the second month in a row this has happened. Vermont was the closest to its normal value with a positive temperature departure of 0.9 degrees. The remaining states were all more than a degree above normal. Temperature departures did not vary greatly across the region. As mentioned above, Vermont was the only state with a departure less than one degree, and interestingly, New Hampshire was the only state over 2 degrees above normal on the month.
While temperatures across the Northeast were consistently above normal this April, precipitation amounts were anything but consistent. The amount of rain and melted snow measured this month depended greatly on your location. The region as a whole ended up 0.69 inches in excess of the normal April amount, but Maine and Vermont were both below their respective normals. The rest of the region was above normal to varying degrees with extremely high amounts of rain in southern New England. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all received over six inches of rain which makes April 2004 one of the top ten wettest Aprils on record in the states. A very large portion of the heavy rains in this region fell on April Fools Day, the last effects of a storm that began on March 30th and dropped upwards of six inches of rain in some southern New England locations. This coastal system was followed up by several others during the first half of the month, bringing small snow accumulations to northern and western portions of the region. The remaining precipitation for April was limited due to the northern track of storm systems in the latter half of the month, but several small scale precipitation events added rain to the already high totals in southern New England. Logan Airport in Boston, MA recorded the wettest April in their 84 year period of record with 9.57 inches of rain. Overall, April was the first time since December 2003 the Northeast has been above normal in precipitation. It's also the fourth month in a row that the two driest states in the region have been in northern New England (ME,NH,VT).
Monthly Summary of State Temperature and Precipitation Averages.
