Unusually Dry & Sunny Spring

By: ABC57 Staff

Posted: May 31, 2012 12:18 PM EDT | Updated: Nov 6, 2014 12:16 AM EDT

The National Weather Service (NWS) recently published an article Just How Dry and Warm has this Spring* Been? With rainfall coming in almost 4" below seasonal normals as of May 31st and the warmest spring on record.

Equally impressive, and somewhat related is something that there are no real official records. You may of noticed a lot of sunshine this spring. The normal "permacloud" of March and early April was almost non existent. Here's the breakdown of sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy.

Spring Sunny Days
Month	AVG	2012	2011	2010
March	5	16	13	17
April	6	19	6	16
May	7	21	10	18

Spring Partly Sunny Days
Month	AVG	2012	2011	2010
March	7	11	12	9
April	8	9	14	11
May	10	8	14	5

Spring Cloudy Days
Month	AVG	2012	2011	2010
March	19	4	6	5
April	16	3	10	3
May	14	2	7	8

Spring 2012 was particularly impressive with its lack of cloudy days. These sky conditions have been more indicative of the Inter-mountain west, where they see over 300 days of Sunshine each year.

This data was compiled with help from Currentresults.com and the NWS

*Spring - Meteorological spring is March 1st - May 31st