Looking Ahead to April
As we say goodbye to March, it is a time to look forward into April and what type of weather we can expect in Central Alabama next month.
The normal high for the month of April for Birmingham is 74.1 The normal low is 48.4. The normal high for the 1st of April is 71, rising to 77 by the end of the month. The normal low starts out at 45 and rises to 52 by month’s end. The hottest reading ever in the Magic City in any April is 92 on April 21, 1987. The all-time April record low is 26 on April 11, 1973. While the average last freeze is in late March, our latest freeze ever occurred on April 23, 1986.
The normal rainfall for the month is 4.67 inches. Six months are drier than April, putting it about in the middle in terms of precipitation. 13.75 inches of rain fell in April 1979, a month known for some of the worst flooding ever in Central Alabama. Downtown Northport was flooded by the raging Warrior River. A one hundred year flood on the Tombigbee inundated areas around the city of Demopolis.
Rain normally falls on nine days in the month of April. Thunderstorms occur on five days on average. We average a trace of snow. Yeah right.
The sky is cloudy 32 percent of the time. The sky is clear 28.7 percent of the time.
Our heating degree days are starting to wind down. We average 135 of them in the month of April. Our cooling degree days are starting to ramp up, with 45 of them on average.
Severe weather makes a frequent appearance in April in Alabama. Some of the worst tornadoes and tornado outbreaks in our history have occurred in April, including the April 3, 1974 outbreak that killed 85 people and the Oak Grove Tornado in April 1998.
Category: Pre-November 2010 Posts