A splash of every season will dominate most of the nation as the page is turned to April. An area of low pressure will likely jump onto the Kansas Plains on Monday. An attached warm front should be draped from the storm in Kansas to the Mid-Atlantic states. A trailing cold front will reach New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California by the end of the month’s first day.
Rain and thunderstorms will blossom in the storm’s warm sector from Texas to Kansas and Virginia and North Carolina. Thunderstorms could pack gusty winds, hail, and a brief tornado in the southern Plains and Lower Ohio and Middle Mississippi valleys. In the storm’s cold sector, light to moderate snowfall will be possible in the taller Four Corners to Nebraska and the Dakotas on Monday.
Marching east, the storm will deliver oodles of weather headaches across the eastern third of the U.S. on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Drenching downpours and dangerous weather may rumble from the Lone Star State to Tennessee Valley on Tuesday. A ribbon of snow and a wintry concoction could create intermittent travel headaches from Colorado to central Michigan. Wintry weather could also spread across parts of New York State to northern New England Tuesday night into Wednesday.
Rain will likely soak Boston to the nation’s capital, while thunderstorms will be in the mix from Carolinas to the Sunshine State for midweek and Thursday.
Meanwhile, the calm weather in the western U.S. will end from the Pacific Northwest to Montana and much of the northern Rocky Front Range from Tuesday night to Friday. Several inches to a foot of snow will pile up across the tallier peaks, while umbrellas and rain parkas will be handy accessories across the valleys and lowlands. The entire storm will slow down, laboring across the Plains, Mississippi and Ohio valleys, and to the Great Lakes to central Gulf Coast during the month’s first weekend.
The first week of April will have no shortage of unseasonably cold weather, particularly west of the Rocky Front Range. Seasonably cold weather could dominate the northern Plains to interior New England, and along parts of the northern and central Appalachian Spine. The southern Plains to Florida and around the Carolina Piedmont will be the only places to sneak in seasonable weather the month’s first week.
The weather might not cooperate for the highly-publicized Total Solar Eclipse on Monday, April 8th in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Little Rock, Ark., Evansville, Ind., Cleveland, Buffalo, N.Y., and as far north as Burlington, Vt., and Caribou, Maine. An uncertain central U.S. to Great Lakes and eastern Canada low pressure track could lead to rain and too much cloud cover. Totality will last 2 minutes in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex from 1:40 p.m. to 1:42 p.m. CDT, with Buffalo, N.Y., from 3:18 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. The path across the U.S. will lead to a partial eclipse for more than 2 hours and 30 minutes at any location from the Texas Big Bend to northern Maine.
After a chilled start, the final two-thirds of April are forecast to be seasonable to seasonably warm across the nation’s midsection from the Rocky Front Range east to the northern-tier of the U.S. in New England. Only a few spots could finish the month a few to several degrees below normal, which includes parts of the interior Northwest and California’s northern and Central Valley.
Latest forecasts point to above normal precipitation occurring from the central Plains to the Eastern U.S. from the Delmarva Peninsula to Florida Atlantic coast. This is good news, given it will alleviate short and long-term drought woes in cities such as Memphis, Tenn., and Columbia and St. Louis, Mo. April is the wettest month of the year in Columbia, Mo., where 4.88 inches is typically observed. St. Louis measures 4.73 inches of precipitation in April, its second highest month of the year. Memphis, Tenn., experiences its second highest monthly precipitation in April as well at 5.74 inches.
Snow enthusiasts won’t likely be disappointed this month either. Feet of snow will likely pile up along the Rocky Front Range from Colorado to Wyoming and along the Montana-Idaho border. Several inches to a foot or more will be likely the U.S. northern-tier from coast-to-coast. Another maximum, measured in feet, is forecast across the Sierra Nevada, northern California, and in the Oregon and Washington Cascades. April snow is no stranger, with Caribou, Maine, averaging 8.3 inches. Boulder, Colo., which can have snow accumulate into May, normally receives 14.7 inches of snow in April.
By WeatherBug Meteorologist, Fred Allen
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Story Image: A pair of lightning bolts strike in the middle of the night. (Ron van den Berg from Pixabay)
