The Dilemma of the PA April Bike Trip

Blog reader Stephen sent me this email last night:

Sounds like a nice dream, Stephen.

It's impossible to forecast out that far, of course, but AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO)
did say in his Pro blog yesterday: "Major cold spreads back through southern Canada in the longer term and stands poised for problems into April."

But we can also look at historical data. Unfortunately a quick check of the maps of official climatic stations from our Pro site show that there aren't any official climatic stations near Renovo.

From his description of the location, it sounds like it's about here on TopoZone.com with elevations averaging 1700 feet. Clearfield averages about 1400 feet, according to Topozone. Bradford is higher averaging 1700 feet, so it probably makes more sense to use that climo station.

By visiting AccuWeather.com, putting in Bradford, PA in the city box, and navigating to Forecast/Historical/Past Month, you'll see that the average high is 48 and the average low is 27 on March 31st. That might increase a degree or two during the first week of April. Clearfield is 2-3 degrees above these readings.

And I can also tell you from our Premium site that the highest and lowest Afternoon High temperatures during the last 5 years in the first week in April in Bradford are:

63, 31 (2006)
74, 32 (2005)
47, 30 (2004)
69, 30 (2003)
59, 30 (2002)

What this tells me is that the weather is volatile in Bradford during the first week in April and, except for 2004, each year of the last five has featured some very warm and very cold afternoons.

So it's a tough call – the average high is 48 so there's as much of a chance it would be in the 50's as there would that it would be in the 30's. Given Joe's comment above, I would tend towards guessing that there will be more days below normal this year than above.

Good luck, Stephen!