The month of April is typically one of extremes across portions of the United States, with the final battles between warm, moisture rich air masses and the last of the cold air masses that winter has to offer. These are the patterns that lead to severe storms, flooding rains and the occasional late winter snowstorm. Here’s a quick recap of the some those extremes seen this past April across the U.S.
Houston Floods
Houston, Texas was pummeled by extremely heavy rainfall in the middle of April, instantly putting the month into the record books. At Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport on the north side of the city, 9.92” fell on just April 18 alone. That day by itself would have been enough to make for the fifth wettest April since records began being kept at the airport in 1970. Additional rainfall throughout the month easily made April 2016 the wettest ever recorded at Bush Intercontinental, with a total of 14.39 inches, easily surpassing the prior record of 10.92 inches that fell in April 1976. On Houston’s south side, Hobby Airport recorded a total of 8.95 inches for the month, placing it as the sixth wettest April there since records started being kept in 1889.
Fort Bend County Twitter showing flooding on streets of Katy, TX
Some of the eastern and northern suburbs of Houston saw even more rain, with several measurements between 10 and 16 inches between April 18 and April 20, including Katy, Texas, which received almost a foot and a half of rain. According to CNN, the devastating flooding that resulted flooded 1,000 homes, caused an estimated $5 billion in damage, and killed at least seven people.
While the rain was extreme, it’s something that has become fairly common in southeast Texas as of late. According to the National Weather Service, this was the sixth time in just the past year ‘that some part of southeast Texas received 10 inches of rain or greater within a 24 hour period.’
Spring Snow in Denver
After a warm start to April, with 13 of the first 14 days of the month recording above average temperatures reaching as high as 77 degrees, the city and surrounding areas were hit with a snowstorm April 16. Officially at the airport, 11.8 inches of snow fell, but other locations along the foothills of the Rockie Mountains received two to three feet!
Denver picked up another 3.5 inches the final two days of April to bring the monthly total to 15.6 inches. While many other places would be unnerved by that much snow in the middle of spring, April snow is typical in Denver, which averages about 9 inches of snow for the month. In fact, on average, April is the second snowiest month in Denver, behind only March (11.4 inches of snow on average). The 15.6 inches last month ranks 23rd on the list of snowiest Aprils, with records dating back to 1881. The snowiest April was in 1933 when 33.8 inches fell. So while the April snow may seem unusual to those of us on the outside, the folks of Denver probably thought nothing of it.
Severe Weather Outbreak
As is typical in spring, all the ingredients came together for a widespread severe weather outbreak on April 26, spanning the Southern and Central Great Plains over into the Ohio Valley. There was significant hype in the week leading up to the outbreak. On the day of the storm, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center issued a ‘Particularly Dangerous Situation Tornado Watch’, which is reserved for only the most extreme severe weather events. Sure enough, storms that day pounded a dozen states with quarter to softball-sized hail, heavy rain and damaging straight-line winds between 60 and 90 miles per hour, toppling trees and power lines.
There were also at least 28 tornadoes that day, including in the Tulsa and Oklahoma City metros. Fortunately, all of the April 16 tornadoes were EF1 or less, not the long-lived monster tornadoes that were first feared.
In all, about a half dozen people were injured by storms, with one person killed in Texas after a tree was blown onto her mobile home. But with more than 50 million people living where severe storms developed, the number could have been much higher.