Sacramento has had a pretty cool spring. Blame seems to lie with a ridge parked over the middle of the country, forcing troughs onto both coasts, and not the usual suspects (like El Nino):
A temperature map compiled by the climate center shows that most regions of California, especially the northern three-quarters, have been cooler than normal since March 18.
In Sacramento, it's telling to count the number of days reaching or exceeding 100 degrees so far: Zero.
According to Don Noxon, a National Weather Service forecaster in Sacramento, we usually hit the century mark five times by the end of June.
We're behind on 90-degree days, too. April, May and June usually produce 22 days of 90 or above. We've had nine.
As for rain, this was California's 21st-wettest spring since 1895, said Anne Waple, a research climatologist at the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina. "I think it might be especially noticeable because last spring was the fourth-driest," she said.
Average rainfall for the state in March, April and May this year was 7.78 inches, compared with 1.94 inches for the same period in 2004. Normal is 5.61 inches.
...Over the winter, an El Nino, a pool of abnormally warm water that has the potential to influence weather around the world, formed in the Pacific Ocean. But the El Nino was very weak and is gone. "We saw very few global effects from it," Waple said.
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