REMARKS 



Weather during March was abnormally warm, with less rain 

 and snow than usual. The mean temperature during the month 

 was 44.4 degrees, while the normal mean temperature for March 

 is 34.4 degrees. This is the highest mean temperature ever re- 

 corded for March at Amherst since 1837. The maximum tempera- 

 ture of 85 degrees on March 29 is the highest reading ever 

 recorded in March. The heating load during the month was 645 

 degree-days, the normal being 950 degree-days. The heating 

 load for the season is now 5815 degree-days whereas the normal 

 for that period is 5932 degree-days. 



A total of 2.50 inches of snow fell during the month and the 

 total precipitation was 2.16 inches. Normally we get 7.47 inches 

 of snow in March with a total precipitation of 3.70 inches. The 

 total snowfall for the winter to the end of March is 52.50 inches, 

 the normal being 47.78 inches. There were 226 hours of bright 

 sunshine, the normal for March being 199 hours. 



Dr. J. K. Shaw, research pomologist, gives the following re- 

 port: "While the past winter was colder than the average, there 

 were no severe minima, and peach fruit buds survived the winter 

 in numbers sufficient for a good crop. The heavy covering of 

 snow protected low-growing plants and the ground thawed from 

 below so that there was little frost in the ground when the snow 

 cover melted. This took place in March with unusual rapidity 

 but with no high river floods. The extremely high temperatures 

 in March have advanced vegetation so^that it is about as far 

 along as it was a month later last year. Grass is green and 

 leaves are developing on many shrubs. Forsythia is in full bloom 

 at the last of the month. It is, so far, the earliest spring in many 

 years. 



"We cannot expect this unseasonably warm weather to con- 

 tinue. We usually get temperatures in April low enough to cause 

 severe injury to vegetation when it is advanced as far as it is 

 at the end of March. While a light frost would not now do great 

 damage, temperatures in the low twenties would cause great 

 injury. Last year the low temperatures in April brought about 

 a situation indicating little danger from spring frosts. Warm 

 weather of early May advanced vegetation very rapidly, apple 

 trees blossomed a day or two earlier than the average, and a 

 disastrous frost occurred on the morning of May 19. This year 

 conditions are reversed and damaging spring frosts are probable. 

 We can only hope that luck will change this year and that we 

 may have cooler weather in April, slowing the progress of vege- 

 tation, but without minima low enough to cause injury." 



