April Forecast Prediciton 2011 -- Follow Up!

Our garden lizard, Larry, rests beside the fennel

The month of April has been atypical to say the least.  Hot, windy, humid and almost rainless are the only words to describe the month of April.  Temperatures have been around average to hot with a couple of cool nights.  We usually wait until May to turn on our airconditioner because our country home has a lot of cool breezes at night.  But this year we barely made it to the end of the month. 

Our total rain collection amounted to about 5 1/2 buckets.  We should have easily filled 12 buckets with regular rainfall.  Our tomatoes are fairing well despite the lack of rainfall due to compost tea watering.  Our compost pile is still having a hard time because of the wind drying it out.  Despite the lack of rainfall, we have our blessings to count.  At least everything in the garden is still green, except the onions...they need rain desperately.  We harvested lettuce and cabbage and they were the best ever.  Our Basil is finally taking off, and the squashes and cucumbers are doing very well.  While our Irises did bloom, they did not show as much as I expected due to lack of rain. 

Tomorrow, May 1st, we have our best chance this spring for decent rainfall.  I pray it comes! 

My Prediction for April 2011--January 4th


It was a very mild day.  I did not need a jacket at all.  As the day progressed, more and more clouds and moisture rolled in, giving me great hope for at least normal rainfall for April with normal temperatures.

Be looking forward to some May flowers in 2011 is my official prediciton because I am expecting our annual April showers! I posted a picture of one of my prized Irises because they usually sneak up on me and bloom in April. Sometimes I wonder if I am not stretching it a bit...but if you looked at the sky today, it should have rained buckets. Optimism prevails again in this prediciton!!

April 2011 Actual:

Low:  34° to 75°
High:  76° to 94°
Winds:   0 to 38 mph with gusts up to 47 mph
Precipitation:  1.87" according to Waco, Texas weather station

Conclusion:

I think it's safe to say that I'm learning a lot about weather prediction.  There was no rain on January 4th, so I should have predicted little to no rain in April, because that is what we got.  Our average rainfall for April is at least 3".  We barely got an inch and a half at our place.  I feel badly for the people in Alabama because I think that if we had gotten some of those storms, they would not have been so hard-hit.  I pray that our weather begins to even out so that we all are blessed with rainfall goodness and miss the devastation of severe weather.  My prediction for April is disproved.