April colder than March in almost half of Iceland in 2012

April was colder than March in many parts of Scandinavia (met.no; smhi.se). This was also the case in the Eastern part of Iceland. On a whole this happened at 44% of the automatic stations. (Results are not in from all of the manned ones). 

That April happens to be colder in March is not that unusual, however. If all of the stations in all years are taken into the batch March is warmer than April about 17% of the time. On about 36% of the years at least one station is colder in April than in March.

One April out of 10 is colder than March at almost all (or all) of the stations. A majority of the stations had a colder April than March in 2010, but one has to go back to 1977 to find an all out April colder than March.

The likelyhood of a colder April after March is of course largest when March has been unusually warm. This was the case now.

But as a whole April was a rather warm month in Iceland, most of the stations had average temperatures above the 1961 to 1990 normal. Only a few stations in the East had below average temperatures.

The lowest temperature in the country was -25.7°C on the 2. (Brúarjökull, in the Eastern highland), but the highest 18.2°C on the 30. (Hallormsstaður, in a deep eastern valley).

April was rather dry in most areas.  

Official IMO April overview (in Icelandic only).