Spring was 2nd warmest ever, and drier than average

The National Weather Service office in Paducah totaled up the numbers for one of our warmest springs on record.

March, April and May combined to be the second warmest spring ever, behind only 2012. March was in the all time top 5, and April was the warmest on record for many locations. May was finally slightly cooler than normal. For Paducah, the average high was almost five degrees warmer than average.

Paducah's coldest spring low was 20 degrees on March 17, and its warmest high was 88 on May 18.

At the same time, spring was drier than usual in most of the region. Precipitation totaled 9 to 14 inches, which averaged 1 to 6 inches below normal. Paducah was just over two inches below its historical average.

Southeast Missouri was the driest, with deficits of 5 to 9 inches that brought on prolonged extreme drought conditions.

For the period, the National Weather Service issued a combined total of 180 severe thunderstorm, tornado, and flash flood warnings, which was very close to an average spring season of 185. It was certainly much quieter than the past 2 years though, with most of our events were in March and April. May was extremely quiet until we had some severe storms on the 31st. We ended up with only 27 warnings issued in May which was our 4th fewest since 1995.