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Monthly Archives: April 2018
Has the cold weather this month caused any positive effects?
As a very unusual month of April comes to a close, it may be of interest to note some of its ramifications across the country, both good and bad.
Among the headaches that have resulted from the unrelenting wintry nature of the month was the cancellation of 28 Major League Baseball games through the late part of the month — an all-time record.
To put this number in perspective, 2016 suffered only 25 cancellations through the entire season! Continue reading
Category: Meteorology, Seasons, Severe Weather
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Comments Off on Has the cold weather this month caused any positive effects?
Has this April set any records?
A fitting climax to a remarkable first two-thirds of April occurred last Wednesday as we received 7.2 inches of snow in Madison, more than doubling the previous daily record for snowfall (3.4 inches in 1912) on April 18.
There have only been two years with heavier snow events later than Wednesday’s. The most was 7.8 inches on April 30, 1994, and the second was a 7.3-inch event on April 23, 1910. Continue reading
What is the cause of strong winds?
The wind is simply air in motion, flowing from high atmospheric pressures to low pressures.
Moving anything requires a force. The strong winds we experienced this past weekend were due to a strong pressure gradient force. Continue reading
Is this cold early spring unusual?
Though we recently endured a colder than normal March (1.3 degrees below normal), temperature extremes were almost non-existent.
The daily average temperature in Madison was below normal on 16 of the 31 days of the month but never by more than 8 degrees. Continue reading
Do April showers bring May flowers?
George Latimer Apperson’s “Dictionary of Proverbs,” traces the phrase “April showers bring May flowers” to the late 1880s and may even go back to the early 15th century.
Weather forecasts based on weather wisdom in folklore are based on careful observations of nature and the skies and correlating those observations with weather events. Some sayings are grounded in atmospheric physics and some seem a bit silly. Continue reading
