Since cool weather in the spring is a little annoying, this post on the Iowa Environmental Mesonet page got me thinking. How common are days in the 40s after the first part of April is over?
More common than I expected, to be honest.
It turns out that, across the I-70 corridor spanning central Ohio, 70 to 80% of years have at least one high colder than 50 degrees between April 10 and May 31, the end of climatological spring.
Not surprisingly, the odds are lower toward far southern Ohio, where they’re more like 50/50. Meanwhile, they’re almost a lock in northern Ohio.
Out of curiosity, I checked to see what the coldest high in Columbus was during this time period in each of the past 10 years.
Sure enough, only three of those years didn’t slip below 50 degrees… and barely so in 2015.
That 57-degree reading in 2017 is actually the warmest coolest high on record (again, for April 10 to May 31). 1940 is the winner in the other direction: 28 degrees on April 12. It came with a coating of snow, too. Yeah, no thanks.