How things are shaping up in 2015? The outstanding features so far are the extremely cold February and the extremely wet conditions in southern Illinois while dry elsewhere.
Monthly Temperature Departures from Average
Blue means colder than average, red means warmer than average. Temperature departures from average tend to cover very large areas, making the statewide average temperature departure a good indicator of conditions around Illinois.
Monthly Precipitation Departures from Average
Red means drier than average; blue means wetter than average. The Illinois statewide monthly precipitation departure for average is not as good an indicator because we can get large differences in precipitation from one place to another. This year is a good example where the southern third of Illinois has been extremely wet, while the remaining two-thirds was moderately dry (map below).
Statewide precipitation departure from January to April
Yellow and orange means drier than average; green and blue means wetter than average. Here you can see the large differences in precipitation departures across Illinois. In the next post we will look at what precipitation in May has done to this imbalance.
