April showers: Too much for some, not enough for others

COLUMBIA, Mo. – There were April showers for some but not for others in the Show-Me State. The month also continued a trend of warmer-than-normal April weather that has lasted for nearly two decades.

“When you go back to 1999, there have only been five years where April saw below-normal temperatures,” said Pat Guinan, climatologist for University of Missouri Extension’s Commercial Agriculture Program.

While April started out with warmer weather, that changed by the end of the month.

“We had a pattern change during the last 10 days of April that brought cooler temperatures,” Guinan said.

For the state as a whole, precipitation in April was near normal, around 3.6 inches. Regionally, parts of Missouri had a lot of rain while others saw less than normal rainfall.

“East-central parts of the state, southeast Missouri, far southwest sections, saw 4 to 6 inches. Around Ste. Genevieve County they saw 9 inches,” Guinan said.

Northern Missouri saw a little less rain, he said. Pockets of very dry conditions, where less than 2 inches of rain fell in April, were found in a few counties across northern and south-central Missouri.

May, typically Missouri’s wettest month, started with spring storms dropping a lot of rain in the northwest.

“We’ve seen some bigger rains over the last few days, so it’s very moist in the northwestern parts of the state,” Guinan said. “St. Joseph picked up more than 2 inches of rain in less than one hour, which led to some flash flooding.”

Still, there are dry areas in the state.

“The dry got drier. Parts of south-central Missouri have seen less than an inch of rain over the past four weeks. That’s dry. This time of year the normal expectation is 4 to 5 inches,” Guinan said.

Relief could be on the way.

“We’re in an unsettled weather pattern right now, and we could get 1 to 4 inches of rain over the next few days,” Guinan said on May 6. “If that forecast verifies, things will be very wet by next week.”

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center’s summer outlook is equal chances of above-, below- and near-normal temperatures and precipitation. So stay tuned, Guinan said.

For more information, visit the Missouri Climate Center website at http://climate.missouri.edu.