The state climatologist says April ended up a warmer than usual month. Harry Hillaker says there were several warm periods throughout the month. “Especially the middle part of the month and then the last three or four days of the month,” Hillaker says. He says the warmer parts of the month and a warm stretch back in March kind of got spring going a little earlier than normal in the state.

While the month was warmer than normal, the warmest day was on April 1st when Little Sioux hit 88 degrees.  “Kind of ironic that we had a 90-degree reading at Sioux City way back on March 16th and haven’t reached that 90-degree mark since then. On the colder extreme, 19-degrees was the lowest temperature we saw during April. It came back on April 4th, Elkader and Bell Plaine had that 19-degree mark,” according to Hillaker.

April 1st was also the warmest day of the month in Atlantic, when we topped at 82 degrees. The average High in Atlantic during April, was 63.6-degrees, which was 1.4-degrees warmer than normal. The average Low for the month was 36.6-degrees, which was just shy of the 37.4-degree norm.

Hillaker says the rainfall amounts weren’t anything out of the ordinary. “Right about usual as least as far as the statewide average goes,” Hillaker says. “A few areas were unusually wet — mainly from the west-central across to the north-central part of the state. Some areas have been very dry, the far northwest corner as well as part of southeastern Iowa as well. But overall, averaging pretty close to normal for April precipitation.”

Rainfall in Atlantic for the month of April amounted to 3.97-inches. Which was slightly more than one-half inch above normal. Hillaker says there wasn’t much severe weather in April.

(Radio Iowa/KJAN weather records)