Minnesota weather: How our cold April stacks up

Thursday's forecast: Cloudy with temps around 50

Some scattered showers are expected to arrive Thursday evening.

(FOX 9) - As we round out the month of April this weekend, it will feature the same weather we've had pretty much all month long; rainy and cool.

While no record lows have been broken this month — although we were certainly close on a couple of occasions— the persistence of our cool and showery conditions have led many of us to question why we live here. As terribly cloudy, cool, and wet as it has been, it may not be as far below average as you may think.

(FOX 9)

It has felt like the coldest April on record. So many folks have reached out to me asking if we have ever had such a cold April. Well, we have short memories, don't we? Don't get me wrong, it's certainly been chilly, but we aren't likely to even slip into the top 10 for coldest Aprils in the Twin Cities.

Just four years ago, we experienced one of the coldest on record with more than 2 feet of snow and temperatures more than 5 degrees colder than this year, on average. Just a few years before that, in 2013, it was also a very chilly year with temps similar to this year.

This goes along with a trend we have experienced over the last decade or so. The late winter and early spring months have seen some cooling. February, March, and April are the three months where our new 30-year climate normal has cooled when compared to the previous decade. March has experienced the most drastic change, down about a degree or so. Doesn't sound like much, but it takes some pretty drastic temperature swings in the 2010s to be able to drag down a 30-year average by nearly a degree.

Every other month of the year here in Minnesota has experienced warming with the late fall and early winter months of October, November, and December experiencing the largest jump in temps. Misery loves company though as we aren't the only ones dealing with chilly April temps this year. Much of the northern half of the U.S. has been several degrees below average this month.

The bright side to our cool and wet winter and early spring as it has pretty much squelched all the remaining drought from last year. While there are still some minor dry areas in southern Minnesota, the Twin Cities and much of northern Minnesota are now officially out of drought.