April 2006 Saint Cloud Weather Summary

Parched April Gets Drenched Over Last Weekend

 Going into the last weekend of April, the total rainfall at the Saint Cloud Airport was only 1.24 inches, dry enough to allow grass fires to dominate northern and central Minnesota during the week. However, beginning Friday afternoon, the rain came and came. By the time it was over, the Saint Cloud Airport ended up with 4.03 inches of rain for April, 1.90 inches above normal. This made April 2006 the 12th wettest April in the 114 years of Saint Cloud rainfall records.

The main reason was that weekend washout, which produced 2.79 inches of rain between 5 AM Friday, April 28 and midnight Sunday night, April 30. Note that the normal rainfall for the entire month of April is 2.13 inches. The steady rain did produce a record rainfall total for April 29 with 1.24 inches. Still, it was not even close to a record April rainfall. On April 22, 2001, 3.54 inches fell, which was part of an all-time rainiest April (8.42 inches). This April's rainfall was also short of April 2003, during which 4.73 inches fell (7th wettest on record).

The other contributor to our nearly dry April was the very warm temperatures. The average Saint Cloud Airport temperature was 49.9°F (avg. high 62.1°F; avg. low 37.6°F). So, April 2006 ended up being 6.3°F warmer than normal and ranked as the 9th warmest April in the 126 years of Saint Cloud records. It was also the mildest April since 1987. After April 9, there was only a day with frost, leaving a total of 7 days for the month, less than half the normal days for April (15.7). There were only 6 days with a below normal temperature during the morning, 4 of which happened at the end of the month. During the first 23 days of the month, only 2 days had a below normal temperature. Instead, a new record high (81) was set on April 13.

The mostly dry and warm weather during April did help to mitigate flooding in the Minnesota River during the middle of the month. The Red River is still out of its banks in northwest Minnesota at Drayton and Pembina as it slowly recedes from major flood levels reached early in the month. The cause of these floods was mainly the rapid melt of the large snowpack, although the dry weather that dominated much of the month kept this flooding from being worse. The new month is beginning with flooding problems due to the weekend's heavy rain, especially in southwestern Minnesota.

Despite the weekend heavy rain in the southern two-thirds of Minnesota, conditions remained fairly dry in northern Minnesota. The last Minnesota State Climatology Office weekly precipitation report from April 24 aren't valid in the heavy rain area, but does show the extreme dryness that has dominated the northern third of the state. The Minnesota Department of National Resources noted that high fire danger in northeastern Minnesota would begin again as soon as the clouds break.

April 2006 Statistics