Going for a record April precipitation

As of April 29th we had 103.6 mm of precipitation for the month, however the forecast is calling for anywhere from 10 to 20 mm of rain this afternoon and evening.

Depending on how much we get today, this April might get into the top 5 wettest Aprils of all time. No matter what happens it will be the wettest one since 1996.

Here are the current top 7 wettest months of April:

1921 - 135.9 mm
1933 - 133.9 mm
1991 - 132.1 mm
1996 - 130.6 mm
1916 - 123.2 mm
1954 - 121.4 mm
1979 - 121.3 mm

Well that was something

Our first real good thunderstorm of the year really hit us suddenly and hard.

There really wasn't that much total rain (11.0 mm) but when it came down starting at 4:30 pm it was painful for those of us unlucky enough to be stranded outside. It wasn't hail but it felt like little rocks being thrown at me and I saw a recycling bin going down Bridgeport at about 50 km/h, if you are missing one it is probably in Guelph by now.

The temperature went from 20.5 °C to 15.6 °C in the fifteen minutes between 4:30 pm and 4:45 pm. That's not an all-time record (it dropped 5.7 degrees back on June 8th, 2007) but it could likely be the fastest drop we see this year.

After taking shelter on the main floor of the parking garage on King I watched as some of the construction fencing from the new public square blew onto King Street. This caused a bit of traffic mess before me and hot dog vendor guy pulled the debris to the side of the road.

Anybody else got stories from the storm?

We have a winner!

We (finally) have a winner in the 2009 weather station contest!

This year's winner is:

Ross Schneider
who correctly chose a time of 1:30 pm on April 18th

He realized back in February that the winning day would be his birthday (I think this is our first birthday winner).

In second place we have:

Michael Theunissen

As well the following people are the winners in the random draw:
Deema Saleh, Joe Szalai, and Christina Miceli.

Thanks to the everybody who entered the contest, we hope you had fun with the contest, and will enter again next year.

And this is probably thinking too far ahead, but note that for next year's contest in 2010, the entry period will likely be in early February so that it won't get lost in all the media coverage of the Vancouver Olympics.

Once again we would like to thank UWShop and The Bookstore who sponsored this year's prizes.

As well as taking home some cool prizes, the winners will also become members of the Waterloo Weather Station Contest Hall of Fame.

Might it finally happen?

There is a forecasted high of 18°C for this Friday.

That is tantalizingly close to hitting the 20°C needed to win the weather station contest.

But remember this forecast was made on Monday morning and these 5 day forecasts can change quite a bit

The real Fassnacht storm

OK so I kind of jumped the gun last week calling that light dusting the Fassnacht storm.

As someone posted in the comments that is just tempting nature to give us a real storm and low and behold it delivered.

We had a little over 10 cm over the past day or so and it doesn't look like it is going away till later in the week. We can take comfort in that the forecast is that spring will return for the long weekend.

And yes the weather station contest is still on, we have only gone above 15 C a couple of times so far and even the long term forecast doesn't get that high. So it looks like it might be while yet before we have a winner.

Crazy April turnaround

Just as we are enjoying a sunny day of 10 degrees, Environment Canada puts out a snowfall warning for 15 to 25 cm of the white stuff.

A wet day in April

On Friday, April 3rd we recorded 26.2 mm of precipitation, as per station policy we won't comment on that a being a "record" for the day, but it was the second most April precipitation we have seen in the little over ten years of records at the UW weather station.

The only wetter April day was back in 2006 on the 23rd.

This year the "day's" total precipitation was helped out by the fact that the entire storm occurred during the 24 hours that made up the 3rd.

Also notable was that the temperature dropped almost 7 degrees in the span of about 2 hours, not to mention the crazy winds that came in after the rain.

March 2009 summary

University of Waterloo Weather Station Summary - March 2009

A month with both average temperature and precipitation

The month started off cold, but this was offset by lots of days with double digit highs to put the overall average temperature 0.85°C above average. However, since we often see large temperature swings during March the average range is very large, so the temperature would have to be more than 1.1°C above or below average for it not to be classified as being within the average range.

Most of the precipitation we saw in March came in the first half of the month. Before the 12th 60.6 mm had fallen, then 12 days of nothing, and finishing off with another 18.4 mm. This totalled to 79.0 mm for the month which was on the high end of the average range that goes from 51.0 mm to 81.3 mm.

Snow? March 12th. 0.5 cm. March average 24 cm. End of the snow story.

We have now had 209.7 mm of precipitation this year compared to the average of 185.2 mm for the end of March.


Environment Canada prediction of temperature for the month: Below average
Actual Temperature: Average

Summary for March 2009:
Maximum Temperature 16.6 °C
Minimum Temperature -16.6 °C
Average Daily High Temperature 5.0 °C (Long term average 3.5 °C)
Average Daily Low Temperature -5.5 °C (Long term average -5.6 °C)
Total Precipitation 79.0 mm (Long term average 70.6 mm)

(Long term averages based on 1971-2000 data for the Waterloo Wellington Airport)

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