Apr 28, 2021 3 min read

April is almost at an end, and suffice to say this month has had, well … some issues. It seems to me like April 2021 is having an identity crisis. It can’t decide whether it wants to be part of spring or hold onto winter’s chill.

We’re winding up the month pretty much around average for the overall month’s temperature, but daily highs and lows have been anything but normal with wild swings in both directions. One of my coworkers joked that my weather forecast looked like the second hill on the Phantom’s Revenge at Kennywood.

Maybe we should say this April is Punxsutawney Phil’s Revenge for everyone always spewing vitriol at him after he calls for six more weeks of winter. That was his prognostication this year and he was (sort of) right with more cold temps … but just a bit off on the timing. That chilly air returned more than a month after the start of spring!

Let’s look at the numbers, shall we? We had a snowy December, January and February before March turned off the snow machine almost completely, leaving us with only 0.1 inch of the white stuff for the entire month. April is winding down with 2.4 inches of snow in the books. The 30-year average for April in Pittsburgh is 1.5 inches of snow. We got our first 0.8 inch of April snow this year on – you guessed it – April Fool’s Day. The other 1.6 inches came on the 21st. That marked the latest one inch or greater snowfall since 2005 (1.6 inches fell on April 24, 2005). In case you are curious, the latest snowfall of greater than one inch on record in Pittsburgh happened on May 9, 1966, when 3.1 inches of snow fell.

As for April, the first three days started off much chillier than normal with some spring snow. After that, we soared way above average, with highs in the lower 60s all the way into the 80s the second full week of the month. About a week later, we plunged back into much colder than normal temperatures for the next 10 days. Pittsburgh actually set a record on the 21st for the coldest high temperature on record for that date of only 40 degrees. This final week, we’re ending on a high note with more 70s and 80s. Identity crisis, indeed.

As we look forward to the start of May, you’ll be happy to know the average snowfall for Pittsburgh in May is zero. All signs currently point to this May starting off warmer than normal. The latest long-range temperature outlook for May and into the start of summer is for above normal temperatures for our region. That’s a far cry from May 2019. You may recall that trace of snow that fell last year on Mother’s Day.

I’ll just be happy if I can finally quit switching between turning on the furnace and air conditioner every other week!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.