April went from a month where you could sleep with your windows open to one where you had to turn on the heater. State Climatologist Harry Hillaker says the official weather readings confirm the extremes. He says the first three weeks of the month were extremely warm and Iowa was on a pace to have it warmest April ever. He says we were 11 degrees ahead of normal with every day of the first 21 days of the month averaging about normal. The last nine days, though, all finished below normal for temperatures. Hillaker says once the figures are all in — this April will go down as one of the top ten warmest. He says at the very least it will be the warmest April since 1985. There should be plenty of May flowers as Hillaker says the April showers were abundant. “Basically the rainfall kind of followed the temperatures. We had quite a bit of rain during especially the second and third weeks when it was quite warm,” Hillaker says. “When it turned cooler the rainfall hasn’t been quite as heavy or frequent.” He says overall we averaged about six inches of rain — about a quarter inch more than usual. Hillaker says the rainfall varied widely. Some parts of western Iowa were very, very wet, such as Harrison County. He says other parts of the state, like the northeast and north-central, were very, very dry. Hillaker says 2005 is turning out to be a little damper than normal. Overall precipitation for the first third of the year is running a little ahead of average, while temperature wise it’s been a pretty mild year thus far.