National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson said it was Monday’s cold – not the snow – that was such an anomaly on a day with a historic average high around 50 degrees.
“This is not unusual to have snow in April,” Simpson said Tuesday. “What is very unusual is how cold it was yesterday.”
At Chicopee Falls Westover Air Force Base, the nearest National Weather Service base to Northampton, temperatures stayed in the 20s Monday with wind chill getting down to single digits early Tuesday morning.
Simpson said an arctic air mass which had dropped down from Canada was the cause of the cold. He said to expect temperatures in the mid to low teens Wednesday morning.
In the Hampshire County, snow accumulation measured Monday afternoon ranged from 3.5 inches in South Hadley to 6.3 inches in Williamsburg. And Easthampton was covered in a 4-inch blanket of snow.
The majority of snow will be gone by Wednesday afternoon, Simpson predicted. The Weather Service calls for temperatures in the 50s on Thursday and Friday.
Simpson said record setting snowfall in Holyoke, where good records are kept were in 1907 and 1982, when April snowfall totals topped one foot.
Area public works directors said snow cleanup was conducted just as it would be in any winter weather event.
“It’s a difficult winter storm that we got in early spring,” Easthampton DPW Director Joseph I. Pipcznski said Tuesday. “We’ve got to do the same thing.”
There are some differences when dealing with snow this late in the year, Pipcznski said. For one, plow drivers had to be careful about where they pushed the snow now that the ground has thawed. Pushing snow onto thawed lawns can cause damage, he said.
“Yesterday we had to be careful just to stay at the edge of the road,” Pipcznski said. “We’re going to have some spots where the roads aren’t wide – but that’s going to be short lived.”
Tuesday, Pipcznski said his crews are focusing on ensuring that roads are thoroughly sanded to melt ice as quickly as possible.
Amherst DPW Superintendent Guilford Mooring said the largest difference in that town was that crews didn’t pre-treat roads before the snow fell because the surfaces were already warm.
“It was just not what everybody wanted,” he said. “They went out, they plowed it.”
Plows will continue to do spot work as needed Tuesday, Mooring said, and treat the accumulated snow just as they normally would.
“Even though its the 5th of April and the NCAA (March Madness) is done, it’s still winter,” he said.
Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com. Dave Eisenstadter can be reached at deisen@gazettenet.com