The week of April 21-26 will feature temperatures a few degrees above normal with below normal rainfall. Normal highs are in the 60s and normal lows in the 40s for the most part. Normal rainfall is about 0.75 inches. We are also entering the period where we see our last freeze this week in any given year. However, as we talked about in March, we expect a late last freeze into early May this year based on years similar to this one. Much of the area will see lows on Wednesday this week near freezing.
The week of April 27- May 3 will be much cooler than normal and wetter than normal. However, confidence is low to moderate in this period with significant weather uncertainty. There is more confidence of being chilly than wet. Temperatures will likely be 5-10 degrees below normal at least in this period. More freezes are expected from April 27-29 across the state of Ohio. A wetter weather system is possible by the middle to end of the week about April 30-May1. There is a low chance of some mixed wet snow on the northwest side of the storm later next week but again confidence is low on that but there is a low risk of that occurring.
All of this means soil temperatures will remain somewhat below normal into early May.
Going forward, May appears to be cooler than normal for the start of the month but will end warmer than normal. Rainfall after the first few days appears below normal for several weeks of the month until possibly the end of the month.
Summer still looks uncertain with the tendency toward near normal temperatures and near or slightly drier than normal weather.
Finally, indications are an El Nino may be in the process of forming. Research by OHRFC and Ohio State University indicates negative impacts on crops yields during El Nino year particularly corn. However, since this El Nino was not going in early spring already and the lag to atmospheric response, impacts may be rather marginal this year.