As I was going through the Excel spreadsheet with the climate data, I realized that I realize that I never wrote anything up about April’s weather. I also realized that I hadn’t made a post in quite a while, and didn’t really have anything better to talk about.

I did plant some seeds two weeks ago, however, and now that they have grown to a pretty good height, I am planning on planting them – and some other seeds still in the packets – into my garden either tomorrow, or, if the weather does not cooperate, sometime this week. I’m growing pretty much everything that I did last year – pumpkins, zucchini, green beans, carrots, broccoli, green peppers – I also have seeds for snow peas and sunflowers. I’m not really planning on extracting sunflower seeds form the plants, but it’s always a possibility for me to do so if I want, and if the birds don’t get to the seeds first. I wanted to take some pictures of my beauties – i.e. my seedlings – as they popped out of the soil, but I didn’t get around to it, and now, like I said, all of the plants are pretty tall in their little peat pots. Maybe I’ll just take some pictures after I get all of them into the ground.

Before I get to talking about what I wanted to, I found the schedule for this year’s AP Readings. All of the free-response questions from each one of the Advanced Placement tests will be arduously graded at sometime over a two week period in the beginning of June. Some subjects take longer to grade than others, due to the fact that some AP courses are more popular than others. The dates and subjects of the readings are as follows:

Calculus (AB & BC) – June 2-8 (Colorado State University – Fort Collins, CO)

English Literature – June 2-8 (Ocean Center – Daytona Beach, FL)

Psychology – June 2-8 (Adam’s Mark Beach Resort – Daytona Beach, FL)

U.S. History – June 2-8 (Trinity University – San Antonio, TX)

Chemistry – June 3-9 (Clemson University – Clemson, SC)

Economics (Macro & Micro) – June 3-9 (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE)

Environmental Science – June 3-9 (Clemson University – Clemson, SC)

European History – June 3-9 (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE)

World History – June 3-9 (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE)

Art History – June 11-17 (The College of New Jersey – Ewing, NJ)

Studio Art Portfolios – June 11-17 (The College of New Jersey – Ewing, NJ)

French (Language & Literature) – June 11-17 (The College of New Jersey – Ewing, NJ)

Latin (Literature & Vergil) – June 11-15 (The College of New Jersey – Ewing, NJ)

Music Theory – June 11-17 (The College of New Jersey – Ewing, NJ)

English Language – June 12-18 (Ocean Center – Daytona Beach, FL)

Government & Politics (U.S. & Comparative) – June 12-18 (Colorado State University – Fort Collins, CO)

Biology – June 13-19 (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE)

German – June 13-19 (Trinity University – San Antonio, TX)

Physics (B Ca & Cb) – June 13-19 (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE)

Spanish (Language & Literature) – June 13-19 (Trinity University – San Antonio, TX)

Statistics – June 13-19 (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, NE)

Computer Science (A & AB) – June 14-20 (Clemson University – Clemson, SC)

Human Geography – June 15-20 (Clemson University – Clemson, SC)

I took the Advanced Placement examinations in English Literature, Chemistry, Psychology, and Government & Politics/Comparative this year. I always like to know when and where the free-response questions from my test are going to be read. Additionally, the free-response questions from this year’s tests are now available; a link has been posted with the subjects on the calendar above.

Back to the subject of this post, that being the weather for the month of April. Overall, the month turned out to be 1.7°F above normal, neither fulfilling nor debunking the National Weather Service’s claims of what April would be like (the NWS said that there would be “equal chances” for the month to be either above or below normal).

The warmest maximum temperature for the month, 87°F, was unquestionably quite an anomaly. The next warmest maximum temperature reached in April was 72°F. The 87° temperature occurred on the 28th of the month, after a warm front quickly passed through Minnesota, bringing strong winds from the south. The 87°F temperature was so warm, in fact, that it broke the record for the date. The old record had been 79°F, and had been set in 1970. This was the only record broken in the month, and continues a rather unusual trend of one record high or low temperature broken in each month so far in 2004.

The last time that the temperature had been anywhere near the 87°F recorded on April 28th was on October 7th, 2003, when the high temperature of the day reached 85°F.

The lowest maximum temperature in April was 37°F on the 11th of the month. This temperature was 15°F below the normal high for the date. The coldest minimum temperature of the month was 19°F, which was recorded on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 13th days of the month. This temperature was 3°, 4°, 5°, and 9° below average for the low on each one of those dates, respectively.

April did not do much to help Brainerd get out of its precipitation deficit, as only half of the normal amount of precipitation fell during the month. The normal amount of precipitation in the month of April is 2.00 inches. Brainerd ended up receiving 1.02 inches of precipitation during all of April. Without the normal amount of precipitation in April, the drought conditions currently being experienced in the Brainerd area – and much of Minnesota as well – were just made worse. Since May has also been a very dry month so far, it appears as if the area might be going into a long-term drought. The amount of rain that falls in what’s left of May and the beginning of June will certainly play a major role in determining how well the 2004 growing season progresses.

Snowfall during the month of April was virtually nonexistent. Officially, only 0.1 inches of snow were recorded in April, well below the average amount of snowfall in Brainerd during April. Actually, because there was so little snowfall during the month, April 2004 will go down as one of least snowiest Aprils in all of Brainerd’s history.