Typically, when we think of April showers, rain is the first thing that comes to mind. That wasn’t always the case this past April, or any April in Rochester, and this first full month of spring brought us more variability.

What You Need To Know

  • The warmest day in April reached a high of 79 degrees

  • After an abnormally to moderately dry start, precipitation ended up above average for the month

  • The Rochester Airport picked up almost five inches of snow in April

 

We started off the month a bit on the chilly side with highs in the 30s. Not only that, but we even picked up an inch of snow at the airport on the first day of the month.

The snow didn’t last long though as temperatures quickly warmed up. By the beginning of the second week of April, the 8th and 10th to be exact, featured highs soaring well into the 70s.

The warmest day of the month occurred on the 10th with a high of 79 degrees.

While we didn’t break any records, we came close on the 8th. We ended up coming in at 78 degrees, which was just two degrees shy of tying the record high of 80 degrees for the date. Either way, we got a little taste of summer.

After that, temperatures fluctuated but most of the month though came in above our 46.3 degree average. In the end, we ended up averaging out almost a degree above average at 47.2 degrees. There were only five days throughout the month where Rochester fell below average.

We managed to squeeze in two more days with highs in the 70s towards the end of the month. Leading up to that warmup, it turned briefly cold enough that it supported some accumulating snow across the area.

In fact, we set a record snowfall on the 21st as the airport picked up 2.8 inches of white stuff that day, surpassing the previous record of 1.5 inches set back in 1978.

That wasn’t the only day in April with record-breaking precipitation. On April 11, a large storm system dropped over an inch of some much-needed rain. Prior to that, our entire area was classified as abnormally to moderately dry by the National Weather Service, as we were over three-quarters of inch below our average monthly rainfall to that point.

A rainfall total of 1.18 inches was measured at the airport on the 11th. Go back almost 100 years to find our previous record, which was 0.80 of an inch set back in 1922. 

With more rain sprinkled in, we managed to come in right around two-thirds of an inch above average for the month in terms of precipitation, with 3.38 inches. 

Rochester’s monthly snowfall total came in above average as well. In the end, 4.7 inches of snow stacked up throughout the month, which is over three-quarters of an inch above what we typically see.​