If last month had a nickname it would be 'Average April'

If I happened to be in the business of nicknaming the months, this April would be "Average April."
Overall, April temperatures varied little, with average highs just slightly below normal and average lows a few degrees above normal.
Even the extremes for the month were not that extreme, with the warmest high occurring on the 14th at a picture-perfect 77 degrees. The coldest low was a bit nippy on the 9th at 18 degrees, but nothing that a true Minnesotan can't handle. 
However, if one were to put the temperatures — especially the high temperatures — on a graph, it would give the appearance of a coaster ride at your nearest theme park.  Temperatures frequently rose into the 70s before quickly being followed with 40s and 50s, followed by another dose of 70s and so on and so forth. 
So, if you didn't like the weather one day, you didn't have to wait long to test out another day.
April seemed wetter than it actually was and there are probably a couple of reasons for that.
First, the primary bulk of the precipitation came in the latter half of the month. 
Second, there seemed to be more thunderstorms or spotty, heavy-rain events than the typical, dreary, light-to-moderate rain over a significantly large area that we normally see in early spring. 
In fact, the Luverne airport measured only 1.94 inches for the month, which is about 1 inch below normal.
However, if you look at other areas of the county or even in Sioux Falls, you will find much higher amounts with Sioux Falls receiving over 4 1/2 inches of rain for the month. 
In any event, the rainfall and periodic bouts of sunshine certainly helped green things up and get the lawn mowers to start running.
So far this year, our temperatures have been averaging a very nice 4 degrees above normal with rainfall about 1 inch below normal and with May being one of the wettest months, on average, we may be able to eliminate most of the current deficit this next month.
 
A blog of daily summary and other interesting weather events for the Luverne area is at http://luvernemnweather.blogspot.com. Thone can be reached at tathone@gmail.com.