April 2020 Central NC Climate Summary

By Phillip Badgett and James Danco

April 2020 turned cooler with frequent showers.

April 2020 brought a significant pattern change from the previous month. Average

temperatures were slightly below normal, by generally 0.5°F to 1.0°F. The temperature turnaround

came on the heels of March 2020, in which all sites recorded their fifth or sixth warmest March on

record. Instead of a persistent upper level ridge positioned off the Southeast US coast, a trough

prevailed aloft over much of the Great Lakes to the Eastern Seaboard. The trough aloft led to

frequent cold frontal passages accompanied by cool temperatures. The monthly average

temperatures and their departures from normal at the three climate sites are depicted in Table 1.

Even with the frequent cold fronts, moisture was lacking with the predominant northwest

flow aloft. This led to frequent, but mainly light and scattered, rain showers instead of large, wet

weather systems. However, that changed late in the month as a large low pressure system brought

significant rain back across our region on the final day of April. Precipitation totals were about

0.25 to 1.25 inches above normal at the three climate sites, or about 105% to 130% of normal.

Despite the lack of strong low pressure systems during the month, the sheer number of

them still resulted in a very low average air pressure across the U.S. East Coast, including in central

NC. In fact, courtesy of the NC Climate Office, at both Raleigh and Greensboro, the average sea

level pressure was the fourth-lowest on record for the month of April

(https://climate.ncsu.edu/climateblog?id=316). Furthermore, some strong winds were associated

with all the passing storm systems and cold fronts. In fact, according to the Southeast Regional

Climate Center, Raleigh experienced 13 days of wind gusts of 30 mph or greater, which is the

highest for any one month since 1975!

Table 1: Monthly Temperature Statistics

Site Avg High

Temp (°F)

Avg Low

Temp (°F)

Avg Temp

(°F)

Departure From

Normal (°F)

Maximum Temperature

(°F)

Minimum temperature

(°F)

Greensboro (GSO)

69.4 46.2 57.8 -1.0 84 on 4/8 35 on 4/11

Raleigh-Durham (RDU)

71.6 47.2 59.4 -0.8 84 on 4/7 32 on 4/11

Fayetteville (FAY)

74.8 49.5 62.2 -0.5 87 on 4/8 35 on 4/11

The time series of daily temperature for the month at Greensboro, Raleigh, and Fayetteville

can be found in Figure 1.

April started on the cool side of normal, with high temperatures only in the mid-50s to low-

60s and lows in the upper-30s to mid-40s, after a cold front that brought a heavy rain event on

March 31. Temperatures then warmed quickly with readings soaring into the low-to-mid-80s

between April 6 and 9. The highest temperatures of the month occurred during this period: 87°F

at Fayetteville on April 8, 84°F at Raleigh on April 7, and 84°F at Greensboro on April 8. This

warmth was followed by a strong cold frontal passage early on April 9, accompanied by showers

and storms along with wind gusts as high as 40-50 mph. Behind this front, the temperatures

dropped so much from the 80s that a late-season freeze and frost occurred over much of the

Piedmont, outside of urban centers, on April 11. Raleigh recorded a low temperature of 32°F on

this day, a 52°F drop from the high of 84°F on the 7th. The typical colder locations fell into the

upper-20s including Roxboro, Siler City, Lexington, and Henderson. Both Greensboro and

Fayetteville recorded a low of 35°F on April 11. This was the coldest morning recorded during the

month at all the climate sites.

Another line of storms moved through central NC during the morning of April 13, resulting

in the strongest winds of the month. Many areas reported wind gusts to near or exceeding 50 mph,

including all three climate sites. Laurinburg-Maxton Airport recorded a 68 mph gust! In addition,

a few tornadoes occurred. A strong EF-1 tornado touched down in Alamance County, resulting in

structural damage and numerous snapped trees. Details are shown below:

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1 6 11 16 21 26

Tem

per

atu

re (

°F)

Day of Month

Fig. 1: April Temperature Trends

GSO Highs

RDU Highs

FAY Highs

GSO Lows

RDU Lows

FAY Lows

A couple of tornadoes were also confirmed in Anson County, with details shown below:

The last two weeks of the month turned decidedly colder than normal. There were frequent

cold frontal passages and many days with temperatures averaging between 5°F and 10°F below

normal. Lows frequently fell into the 30s and 40s. The coolness was felt through a majority of

April with about 17 of the 30 days recording below normal temperatures at all three climate sites

(Figure 2). In fact, during the period of April 15-30, only three days averaged warmer-than-normal

at all three locations.

The frequent cold frontal passages kept deep moisture from being tapped from the Gulf of

Mexico during much of April. So while precipitation was above normal, the departures were only

around 1.25 inches or less at the three climate sites (Table 2).

Table 2: Monthly Precipitation Statistics

Site Total precipitation (in.)

Departure from Normal (in.)

Max Daily Precipitation (in.)

Greensboro (GSO)

3.78 +0.21 1.78 on 4/30

Raleigh-Durham (RDU)

4.17 +1.25 1.67 on 4/30

Fayetteville (FAY) 3.73 +0.91 1.30 on 4/30

17

12

17

11

17

11

0

5

10

15

20

# of Days with Below NormalTemperatures

# of Days with Above NormalTemperatures

Fig. 2: Number of Days Warmer and Cooler than Normal

Greensboro Raleigh Fayetteville

As displayed by the radar-estimated precipitation in Figure 3, final monthly totals were

generally in the 3 to 6 inch range across central NC. These amounts were around near normal to 3

inches above normal (Figure 4).

Fig. 3: Radar-Estimated Monthly Precipitation

Fig. 4: Radar-Estimated Monthly Departure from Normal

Precipitation

The cumulative precipitation at the three climate sites for the month of April is shown in

Figure 5. There were many light rainfall events (less than 0.10 inch) during the month. Measurable

rain (0.01 inch or more) was recorded on 13 of the 30 days at both Greensboro and Raleigh, and 9

of the 30 days at Fayetteville. Of those 13 days at Greensboro, 7 of them only brought 0.10 inch

or less. The pattern became wetter in the second half of the month with a couple of significant

systems that brought widespread rain on April 20 and April 30. These two rain events were

responsible for taking the April monthly rainfall totals to above normal. There were only two days

that tallied greater than half an inch at both Greensboro and Raleigh, with only one day in excess

of an inch (April 30).

Other notes:

Number of days with low temperatures at or below 32 °F this month:

Greensboro: 0

Raleigh: 1

Fayetteville: 0

Number of days with high temperatures at or above 90 °F this month:

Greensboro: 0

Raleigh: 0

Fayetteville: 0

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

4.50

1 6 11 16 21 26 31

Pre

cip

itat

ion

(in

.)

Day of Month

Fig. 5: April Cumulative Precipitation

GSO

RDU

FAY

Strongest wind gusts and direction:

Greensboro: SW at 46 mph on April 13

Raleigh: SW at 48 mph on April 13

Fayetteville: S at 54 mph on April 13

Records:

A new daily rainfall record of 1.78 inches was set at Greensboro on April 30. This broke the old

record of 0.99 inches set in 1923.

There were no new records recorded at Raleigh in April 2020.

There were no new records recorded at Fayetteville in April 2020.