A wetter-than-usual April in Almanor
By Dale Knutsen
After a dry winter, April turned out to be wetter than usual in the Lake Almanor basin. Several relatively light storm periods deposited a total of 7 inches of snowfall and 4.39 inches of total precipitation on the west shore. It all happened just a small amount at a time, but by the end of the month the new snowfall had basically matched the average amount for April and the total moisture was about twice the April norm. Our seasonal total snowfall accumulation now stands at 98 inches, or 78 percent of the long-term average. Season accumulation of total precipitation is even better, at 29.01 inches or 98 percent of the long-term figure.
April temperatures were very near the long-term averages for the month. Our average morning low was 28.7 degrees F., or a fraction of the degree warmer than the norm, while our average afternoon high was 57.4 degrees F., which is a bit cooler than the norm. We had morning lows at or below freezing on all but two days, with a 16 deg. F. extreme low on April 12. Our peak afternoon temperature was 68 degrees, which occurred on both the 1st and the 29th. May tends to run several degrees warmer than April, but with less precipitation.
