Last month’s weather in Berks County was a tale of extremes with the lion and lamb wrestling for control.
“March is often a month of abrupt changes between winter cold with some snow and midspring warmth,” said Jeffrey R. Stoudt, retired meteorologist and Berks weather historian. “And this March did not disappoint.”
For this particular March, the lamb — the spring side — won, though the margin of victory was pounded down with a roaring cold snap of several days near month’s end.
There were four date records set last month — three warm and one cold — with 3.9 inches of snow almost certainly finishing off a lackluster snow season at 18.1 inches, about 10 below average.
The snowfall average is of the entire 153-year Berks record period.
The record cold 28th at a high temperature of 34 degrees was among a handful of days that cold that late in spring. The most recent colder day later in the spring was 98 years earlier on April 1, 1924.
“Further, penetrating winds aggravated the chill of this (March’s) cold snap,” Stoudt added.
That extreme day in 1924 came with a 10-inch snowfall, the deepest on record for April in Berks.
There was a brief warmup on the final day last month and it was rainy, adding to the monthly total and bringing that up to near normal.
Precipitation for the first quarter of 2022 was also near normal at Reading Regional Airport at 9.46 inches, 0.35 above the normal of 9.11.
Monthly snow totals among the trained spotters in Berks for March were across a broad range with higher elevations in some cases getting much more snow that lower elevations.
Records explainer
The average monthly temperature last month was 44.6, 3.1 above normal. Before the late month cold snap, the surplus was 5.5 degrees.
It would take 46.1 degrees to get onto the list of 10 warmest Marches.
Recent Marches populate both top 10s: 2010, 2012 and 2016 on the warm list and 2014 and 2015 on the cold list.
Marches in 2017 and 2018 saw heavy snow totals and by temperature were not far off the cold list.
The current normal for March, 41.5 degrees, is the warmest. The normal is calculated as the average of the years 1991 to 2020.
Every 10 years, the National Weather Service recalculates normal based on the previous 30-year period. The differences in some of the averages are significant.
Overall for Berks, 1971-2000 is coldest with 1931-1960 as warmest, though 1991-2020 is close behind.
For March in particular, there isn’t much difference. The 1991-2020 period is warmest at 41.5 degrees, with 1931-1960 at 41.1 and 1971-2000 not far behind at 40.8.
In short, the overall trends of the temperatures in those blocks of years didn’t play out as much in the Marches.
Also, the annual precipitation average for 1991-2020 is the highest on record for any 30-year block. But, March did not see many of the deluges that marked the years late last decade and the normal for the month barely changed.
April 1982
It’s been 40 years since an April cold snap that included the second-highest snowfall on record in Berks for this month.
The arctic outbreak set records for morning cold on the 6th, 7th and 8th in 1982 at 20, 16 and 20 degrees, respectively, marks that have not been challenged in the intervening decades.
The 6th came with an 8.5-inch snowfall in a scene normal for January.
Stoudt gave this blow-by-blow account of that Tuesday: “Rain began around midnight with temperature around 40. Then arctic air drilled in as a developing low tracked along the cold front that just passed. Rain changed to wet snow then powdery snow as temperature dropped into the 20s by daybreak. Snow ended by noon. Arctic winds continued into Wednesday, drifting the snow, and driving temperatures down to 20 by midnight then to the record low of 16 early Wednesday.”
The temperature moderated as the week went on but not enough to prevent a white Easter, which is a rarity. The most memorable white Easter in Berks and the region might have occurred on March 29, 1970, with a snowstorm.
“This stretch of arctic-like weather (in 1982) would be a strong candidate for the most wintry week in April during the 150-year-plus period of record,” said Stoudt, who is also organizer of the Berks Area Rainfall Networks.
The snowstorm dominated the Reading Eagle front page on April 7, 1982, with PennDOT county supervisor Robert T. Evans telling the newspaper, “We can barely keep ahead of the drifting conditions with the way the winds are now.”
April snows aren’t that rare in Berks, but they are typically much less ferocious and the snow cover quickly melts away. The most recent was 3.1 inches on April 2, 2018, not surprisingly a record for that date.
March weather in Berks
• Temperature: 44.6
• Normal: 41.5
• Precipitation: 3.48 inches
• Normal: 3.51 inches
• Snowfall: 3.9 inches (Season: 18.1 inches)
Records
• 75: High temperature, on the 6th (74, 1935 and 1976)
• 75: High temperature, on the 7th (73, 1921)
• 54: Warmest low, on the 19th (50, 1927)
• 34: Coldest high, on the 28th (35, 1937 and 1996)
March precipitation (rain and melted snow) totals from the Berks Area Rainfall Networks, with snowfall totals where available, both in inches:
• Mohrsville, 4.53/NA
• Henningsville, 4.32/8
• Boyers Junction, 3.93/7.2
• Cornwall Terrace, 3.63/5.2
• Lobachsville, 3.57/4.5
• Pine Grove, 3.53 /2
• Lincoln Park, 3.48/3.9
• Shoemakersville, 3.43/NA
• Mohnton, 3.41/NA
• New Morgan, 3.41/4.8
• Wyomissing (Highlands), 3.36/4.3
• Hamburg, 3.36/4.7
• Knauers, 3.33/5
• Greenfields, 3.27/NA
• Reading East, 3.26/3.2
• Shillington, 3.21/3.7
• West Reading, 3.18/NA
• Cumru Township building, 3.11/NA
• Reiffton, 3.04/NA
• Shartlesville, 2.99/4.1
• Wyomissing, 2.82/NA
• Gibraltar, 2.77/2.5
• Mohnton, 2.49/4
Source: Berkshire mont
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