After easy winter, April snow events surprise

With an El Nino winter and the warmth we had (especially early on this season), people in the Northeast may have been betting on an early spring. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans, delivering two significant snow events in April.

The first, which I blogged about, was on April 3-5 and affected southern New England the worst. Up to 10 inches of snow fell in southeastern New York state.

The next and "last" (hopefully) snowstorm was April 8-10. It dropped up to 18 inches at Canaan Valley, West Virginia! Amounts over 9 inches spanned four states (see highest amounts by state below):

18" Canaan Valley, West Virginia 11" Chandlers Valley, Pennsylvania 10.2" Pierpont, Ohio 9.5" Oakland, Maryland 6" Frewsburg, New York

This storm even got us 1.4" officially here in State College, Pennsylvania, (higher amounts around the county), and was the second latest significant (more than just a "trace") in Penn State records since 2000 (the latest was technically 0.2 of an inch of snow on April 24, 2005; the May 12, 2008, event I blogged about only counted as a trace).

Flowers were out and some tree buds were damaged by the cold. My weather station dropped to 18 degrees on April 10.

Ironically, the last storm fell just short of ousting Penn State from the least snowy cold season (July-June) on record (the 16.3" of snow this winter ranked us #105/121).