March 2022 is in the books, and it was warm. Most of the month was dry, but two rain events produced near normal monthly rainfall.

The big story for March was the warm temperatures. Most areas were 3 to 3.5 degrees above normal. The exception was the official climate observation at Tampa International Airport, where the average temperature for the month was almost 5.5 degrees above normal.

That observation is a very poor representation of the Tampa Bay area's weather. With recent construction over the last five to seven years at the airport location, the urban heat island effect leads to much warmer temperatures compared to other locations. 

There were a few record highs in the upper 80s for Tampa during March, when on those days all other sites were in the low to mid-80s.

There was also a cooler two-day period on March 25 and 26 when the official highs were 80 and 81. Those were based on 20-minute temperature spikes; otherwise, the highs were around 74 to 76.

I wrote about this back in 2018.

Since then, we have had discussions with the National Weather Service about either moving the sensor or using a different location for the "official" temperature for Tampa. And despite a spike at only that location in temperatures since 2015, for the time being, the sensor will stay where it is.

March also is usually a fairly dry month. This March was as well, but there were two main weather events that produced rain where most areas picked up essentially normal monthly rainfall in two days.

Here is a look at the numbers.

During April, we really can start to warm up. Normal temperatures go from 80 and 62 on the 1st to 86 and 68 on the 30th.

April is also very dry, with an average of only 2.55 inches of rain. In the first three days of April 2022, 2.5 inches of rain has already fallen. With more rain on the way this week, it is a safe bet to say that April 2022 will end up with above-average rainfall.