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http://www.omniture.com --> Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Advertisement Email Story to a Friend May 3, 2006 April showers? Not during this dry month By Bill Kettler Mail Tribune April was drier than you thought, and warmer, too. It just started out cold and wet. Fresh snow in the mountains on Easter Sunday, April 16, made even optimists wonder whether global climate change might make Southern Oregon the ski and snowboard capital of the northern hemisphere. That storm turned out to be winter's last blast, but it also brought the coldest temperature for the month 30 degrees at the Medford airport. After the storm moved east, April turned steadily more springlike with each day. Measurable rain fell on just nine days during April and only .01 inch came after Easter, but cool temperatures during the first half of the month helped preserve the ample snowpack in the mountains. By the end of month, the water content of the snow stood at 180 percent of average for the Rogue and Umpqua basins as a whole, and some sites had even more. The monitoring station at Fish Lake, for example, had 393 percent of the average snow water content. Only .01 inch of rain fell at the Medford airport after the Easter storm, and April 2006 went into the record books with just 1.25 inches of rain, .06 inches below the monthly average. Three days after Easter, Medford had its first 70-degree day since Feb. 9. Ten days later, the official airport thermometer registered 87 degrees, convincing any doubters that spring was here to stay and providing the high temperature for the month. The warm days in the second half of April pushed the average daily high temperature up to 64.8 degrees 1.7 degrees above normal. Heat in April is nothing unusual for Southern Oregon. Every day of the month has a record high temperature of at least 80 degrees, and 90-degree temperatures have arrived as early as April 13 in 1947. It should come as no surprise that April can be downright hot. In mid-April two months before the summer solstice the sun is in the same place in the sky that it occupies in mid-August two months after the solstice. August is so much hotter because the northern hemisphere has been collecting solar energy since spring. April usually marks the beginning of Southern Oregon's distinctive Mediterranean-style dry season, when rain becomes increasingly rare. In the years since 1912, when the National Weather Service began collecting data, the chance that measurable precipitation will fall on any given day in April is around 30 percent, compared to 50 percent and higher in December and January. By July and August, the probability of rain on any given day drops to as little as 1 percent. Firefighters will be watching May to see if hot, dry days bring an early start to fire season, or if a few showers scattered across the month postpone the drying of grasses and woody materials on the forest floor. Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492 or by e-mail at [email protected] Advertisement s Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker Custom Build Computers Discount Hotel Reservations online casinos news Ashley Furniture HomeStore Send Flowers Southern Oregon Loans California Casinos GMAT Prep Windermere Van Vleet Sports Equipment Online Casino Reviews Online Bingo Entertainment Guide Online Casino Fundraisers Sudoku Online Casinos Canada Online Pharmacy