Rainy April puts Waterloo region on par with Vancouver

Rain, rain go away, come again another day, goes the nursery rhyme.

But the weather in Waterloo region is paying no heed the rain keeps coming back, day after day after day.

In fact, the region saw so much rain in April, 124.2 millimetres in all, that it almost matched notoriously rainy Vancouver, which saw 134 millimetres of rain last month.

"It was definitely not an average April," said FrankSeglenieks, the coordinator of the University of Waterloo Weather Station in an interview with CBCK-W'sThe Morning Edition HostCraig Norris on Friday.

"Itwas about one and half times more precipitation than we'd see in April and it wasn't even, like, big storms. There were a couple of big storms, but it was spread out relatively evenly."

The rain has caused water levels in the area to riseand the Grand River Conservation Authority issued a flood watch on Wednesday, which will be reassessed on Friday at noon.

"There were, like, fivedays that were over 10millimetres. So, it wasn't like there was one big shot of rain, it was pretty much throughout the whole month and that has really kept the ground saturated," Seglenieks said.

"The ground hasn't really had a chance to drain to recover, if you want to say it that way.It's just been constant. It's getting wet, it starts to dry out, and then, boom! more rain. Starts to dry out, boom! more rain."

Seglenieks saidthe jet stream is hanging low over Ontario and storms are being pulled into that warm current of air, which is why the region is seeing so much rain. He also saidthe jet stream is pulling moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.

As for how this spring will stack up against others, Segelenieks says that while 2010 was also rainy, he figures we'll surpass those records.

"This is probably going to at least be in the top five of all-time springs," he said, in terms of precipitation.

On average, the region gets aboutabout 220 mm of precipitation in the spring,andSegeleniekssaid that as of Friday morning around 7:00 a.m., that total was hoveringat 190 mm.

"We're about halfway through spring, the astronomical spring," Segelenieks said. "We've almost had the full amount for the whole spring in this first half of spring."

Temperatures are also lower than normal for this time of year. Usually, the daytime high is about 17, but there are single-digit temperaturesin the weekend forecast, and a chance of snow, too.

Seglenieks saidit looks like for the next week or so it will continue to becooler than normal.