April is normally a dry month and we really begin to see some of the warm days as the frequency of cold fronts bringing cold air into the Southeast US really declines.
And, this April was no different. We had quite a few very warm days but the humidity really wasn’t much of an issue. With that said, most areas ended up about 2 degrees above normal.
But, despite the warm month, our mornings and evenings were generally quite comfortable. We didn’t have too many rain events but the ones we had produced some heavy rains and our month ended up near or even slightly above normal in the rainfall department.
One of those cold fronts managed to produce some severe weather mid month where there were several reports of trees down.
Here is a look at the numbers from April
Tampa
Average Temperature 74.5 (2.7 degrees above normal)
Rainfall 2.68” (0.65 inches above normal)
Lakeland
Average Temperature 73.7 (0.9 degrees above normal)
Rainfall 2.41” (0.06 inches below normal)
Bradenton
Average Temperature 73.8 (2.0 degrees above normal)
Rainfall 1.62” (0.76 inches below normal)
Brooksville
Average Temperature 70.8 (3.2 degrees above normal)
Rainfall 3.34” (0.88 inches above normal)
St. Petersburg
Average Temperature 75.6 (2.8 degrees above normal)
Rainfall 1.49” (0.73 inches below normal)
Looking ahead to May, now we are fully into very warm weather and the historical chances of a cooling cold front become very remote. By the end of May we can start to see some trends toward our summer pattern with our daily thunderstorms.
In most years that we see an early start to the rainy season, it is more likely over inland locations as the water temperatures allow the sea breeze front to move farther inland early in the season. Once the Summer rainy season really moves in in June, we see the sea breeze front closer to the coast and that is why the rain chances and coverage increase nearer to the coast by June.
Looking at the temperatures in May, our normals go from 84 and 66 on the 1st to 89 and 73 on the 31st. Average rainfall in May is still quite low generally between 2 and 3 inches. However, this year, higher rain chances will be around for a few days during the first week of the month.