Temperatures will be a little warmer than normal this April

SALT LAKE CITY – The Wasatch Front has had on-and-off spring temperatures for a while, but was winter as abnormally warm as it felt?

March certainly didn’t feel as cold, but Assistant State Climatologist Jon Meyer said it wasn’t too atypical. In fact, the higher terrain was a little colder than normal.

“We did end up with a few of those nice warm outbreaks,” Meyer said, “Depending where you were at, you were just slightly above or slightly above normal.”

Meyer works for the State Climate Center at Utah State University.

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He said April will likely follow March’s on-par temperature trend. The center predicts the weather won’t swing much one way or another.

“After we get through the next couple of days,” Meyer said, “It does look like we have a strong ridge of high pressure that’s going to settle in the Western U.S. That’s going to really bump up temperatures into those really nice, outside, ‘windows-down’ type of weather.”

That above-average warm pattern is forecasted over the whole state.

Meyer said the warm outbreaks will likely put the temperatures around the high 60s and low 70s, or “two, three, or four degrees above normal during peak heating events.”

Meyer said the public should remember these warmer-than-normal temperatures mean faster runoff.

“Folks living around rivers or canyon mouths can expect our spring runoff to begin, and it may be a bit higher than a normal year might be, but nothing crazy.”

And, despite the warmer forecast, Meyer reminded anyone heading into the mountains to dress still warm.

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