April downpours bring May flowers? Cool, drenching weather to usher in the new month
Spring weather may feel like a distant memory for residents of the Northeast where a multi-hazard storm unleashed rainy, windy and cool conditions to close out the month of April.
The weekend began on a damp and dreary note as a leading storm gave the region a thorough dousing. A swath of 2-4 inches of rain fell from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to central New Jersey, with Dover, Delaware, picking up nearly 5.50 inches of rain from Friday into early Saturday morning.
As AccuWeather meteorologists warned, a second, stronger storm then moved in, bringing another dose of wet weather as April transitioned to May.
"Heavy rain is possible at times from the coastal Carolinas northward into Pennsylvania and New York before heavy rain sweeps into New England through Sunday night, with the last of the organized, intense downpours likely exiting Maine on Monday morning," Thornton said.
In Pennsylvania, Harrisburg reported 2.71 inches of rain on Sunday, while Scranton reported 1.33 inches in the same timeframe. Philadelphia picked up 1.51 inches of rain on Sunday but to the northwest, Reading tallied 2.14 inches, more than doubling its April rainfall total on the last day of the month.
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Major League Baseball games were impacted as well, with a matchup in New York City between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves postponed Sunday. In Washington, D.C., a game between the Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates suffered a delay as a result of the soaking weather.
Although the rain helped to ease the abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions ongoing across part of the mid-Atlantic and southeastern New England, this rain fell too quickly for some, resulting in urban and small-stream flooding for parts of eastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey into early Monday morning.
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AccuWeather meteorologists are projecting that Monday will continue to present difficult conditions for air travel at the major Northeast hubs as a result of the weather.
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"Conditions will rapidly improve in the mid-Atlantic from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia and New York City on Monday, but some aircraft and crews may still be displaced by the storm's activity from Sunday night. Delays and flight cancellations may persist in Boston into the afternoon on Monday," Sosnowski said.
Beyond early week, the weather pattern shaping up for the first week of May is one that does not hold out much hope for warm weather fans across the Upper Midwest and Northeast.
"A very strong low pressure higher up in the atmosphere is expected to stall over the Great Lakes. Storms like this are notorious for bringing unseasonably cold conditions, often for a more prolonged period," said Thornton.
This scenario will play out through this week.
"This pattern will consistently keep high temperatures 5 to 20 degrees below the historical average in places such as Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh," Thornton added.
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The cool, showery weather may last right into the latter portion of the week.
"Farther west and near the core of the coldest air aloft, there could even be a period of heavy, accumulating snow for portions of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan," Thornton said.
That zone of intense, long-lasting snow may persist through early Tuesday, slowly working eastward across the Upper Peninsula and even into northern Wisconsin at times, perhaps delivering a significant but highly localized late-season snowfall event. It's not out of the question that over a foot of snow falls in this zone.
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The forecast from AccuWeather's team of long-range experts does offer some glimmers of hope for those eager for the return of weather more typical of spring.
"The second week of May can start off cool for many, but there may be signs of warming late," AccuWeather Meteorologist Brandon Buckingham said.
AccuWeather will continue to provide updates on temperature trends for the month of May, including when the risk of frosts and freezes will come to an end.
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