Weather | April weather, the likes of which the Czech Republic has never experienced! And rain and storms await us, keep an eye on Blesku’s radar

As fickle as the April weather, our ancestors already said about flighty women. Temperature fluctuations are normal during the fourth month of the year. But they should be a maximum of ten degrees. And this year it was twenty-five.

“We have never experienced such an April. Air temperatures climbed up to the tropical thirties in the first half of April, only to be followed by nighttime frosts. At the end of the month »summer« returned again. The temperature development has completely deviated from normal,” stated the meteorologists of the Meteocentrum company.

Unprepared plants

Nature should deal with early April frosts. But after a warm March, the vegetation was a whole month ahead this year and the plants flourished as if it were already May. The unusually sharp cooling caught them completely unprepared. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, temperatures dropped below zero in places all week.

Warmest in 1800

The warmest April in the last 250 years was measured by meteorologists in the center of Prague in 1800. The average monthly temperature then reached 16.2 °C. Then there are the Aprils from recent years. The second warmest was April 2018 with an average temperature of 15.6 °C and the third was April 2009 with 15.1 °C. On the contrary, the coldest April was in the years 1775 and 1839, when the people of Prague were knocking at just 4.9 °C. The second coldest was April 1817 with 5 °C and the third April 1785 with 5.4 °C.

Tricky average

When we average upward and downward fluctuations, the average April temperature in Prague’s Klementin comes to 13.4 degrees. This year’s fourth month was thus the eighth warmest of all Aprils since measurements began in 1775. It would fit in the top four percent of warmest fourth months.

No storms today

“Thunderstorms or even showers will not occur in most areas today,” said meteorologists from the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. “The exception is the strip of territory from the Giant Mountains to the White Carpathians, where isolated and almost motionless thunderstorms can form. This is due to the advection of warm air in the lower levels of the atmosphere from the east, which will significantly increase the lability of the entire profile. However, at the same time, there is a lack of sufficient moisture for clouds to willingly grow, therefore the formation of showers is more likely to be over the hills, where it will be easier for moisture to be concentrated when the air exits earlier,” they continue.

“Development up to the storms is indicated by the models mainly in the Zlín Region, around the Orlické Mountains and Hrubé Jeseník and in the Krkonoše Mountains. Exceptionally, unpleasantly intense precipitation may be present for a short timewhich the sewers may not be able to remove, or even smaller hailstones,” meteorologists warn.

“Tomorrow’s situation will, on the contrary, be driven by a brisker southwesterly flow afternoon and evening storms from the eastern part of Bohemia to Moravia faster, therefore we do not expect dangerous amounts of precipitation. On the contrary, higher wind gusts may occur in some storms in the line,” adds ČHMÚ.