I realized this morning that I was wearing short-sleeve shirts in March and long-sleeve shirts (and a light jacket) in April. It’s like that movie Freaky Friday about the mother and daughter switching bodies, only in this case March and April have switched.
[updated April 25] The statewide average temperature for April 1-24 is 53.7 degrees. The statewide average temperature for March was 55.0 degrees, based on the latest numbers from NOAA. That means that April was more than a degree cooler than March. What makes this even more freaky is that the April temperatures are still 2.6 degrees above normal!
BTW, the statewide normal monthly temperature is 40.7 degrees for March and 51.7 degrees for April, an eleven degree rise.
How rare is it for April to be colder than March? In the statewide records that extend back to 1895, it happened only in 1907 when the March temperature was 47.0 degrees and the April temperature was 43.2 degrees. In all the other cases between 1895 to 2011, April was always warmer.
Will this strange situation continue through the end of April? The forecast is for warmer temperatures Wednesday but then a return to cooler conditions afterwards. So we have a good shot at maintaining this record.