Hail is latest of weird April weather in Lodi

By mid-April, the weather in Lodi is usually warm and sunny.

Not so on Monday. At 10 a.m., tiny hailstones began to fall out of the dark, stormy sky, bouncing off the ground before quickly melting.

“It has been a wet April for us,” said Ken Clark, senior meteorologist with the private forecasting firm Accuweather.

As of midnight Sunday, the Lodi area had seen 1.84 inches of rain for the month of April, he said — not including the more than a quarter of an inch that had fallen by press time on Monday.

The normal local rainfall for the entire month of April is 1.36 inches; for the first half, it’s 0.8 inches, Clark said.

The rainy April follows a March in which Lodi saw 4.88 inches of rain, about 170 percent of normal, he said. And the unusual late spring rainfall has come after an equally unusual dry winter.

“You’ve actually had twice as much rain in the first half of April as you did in the whole month of February,” he said.

The recent weather in Northern California may be unusual, but it’s certainly not unwelcome in a state that in February feared a return to drought conditions.

The U.S. Drought Monitor’s forecast for the state on Monday showed some abnormally dry conditions for a narrow strip of Northern California, with moderate to severe drought for the lowest third of the state. One small region in the southwest corner of the state is in extreme drought conditions.

In February, most of Northern California was abnormally dry, and most of Southern California was experiencing drought conditions, according to the drought service.

“It certainly was a helpful March,” Clark said.

The rainy weather has left reservoirs in Northern and Central California in good shape, he said.

“And there has been a fair bit of snow in the Sierra,” he said.

The Tahoe area got another half foot of snow over the weekend, the National Weather Service said — and three inches more in Tahoma. Several ski resorts had planned to shut down for the season on Sunday, but a few decided to stay open thanks to the late storm, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Boreal Mountain said it would stay open until April 22, and Mount Rose extended its season to April 29. Sierra-atTahoe, Squaw Valley and Heavenly are also still open, the Chronicle reported.

The snowpack was expected to gain another inch or three on Monday, the newspaper said.

“There shouldn’t be any big concern (of drought) going into the summer,” Clark said.

While the first half of April has been wet, dry days are ahead for Lodi, at least for a little while.

Today is expected to be sunny, though temperatures will still hover around 60 degrees, Clark said. Normal highs for this time of year are in the mid-70s.

Clouds could move in on Wednesday, and a storm system will slide by Lodi, though it should pass to the south, he said.

“There is the chance there could be a shower or two sometime Wednesday night into Thursday,” Clark said.

Then, the weather should warm up, rising to the mid-70s or even to the low 80s by Friday or Saturday.

Aside from one more possible storm system late next week — which may or may not materialize — it looks like sunny days ahead.