Most of the Nation continued to experience unusually warm weather, with record-setting April warmth noted across portions of the southern Plains. Monthly temperatures averaged at least 5 degrees Fahrenheit above normal at numerous locations on the central and southern High Plains.
Cooler-than-normal weather was generally limited to areas along the Pacific Coast and parts of the Great Lakes region and Northeastern States. In the latter region, early-blooming fruit crops were threatened by a series of freezes, the worst of which struck much of Michigan, New York, and
Pennsylvania from April 27-30.
During April, significantly above average precipitation was mostly limited to the Pacific Coast States, the northern Rockies, southern Florida, northern Maine, and parts of the Plains and upper Midwest. Rainfall was especially important across the northern Plains and upper Midwest, where dryness had begun to develop in late-summer 2011.
In contrast, mostly dry weather prevailed across the eastern Corn Belt and much of the South. Planting advanced quickly across the dry regions, but pastures, winter grains, and emerging summer crops were in need of moisture in drought-affected areas of the southern High Plains and the lower Southeast.
Meanwhile, cool, showery weather slowed spring fieldwork and crop development in California and the Northwest. Elsewhere, further deterioration of water-supply prospects occurred in the Four Corners States, where April warmth prematurely melted already meager snowpacks.