During early April, normal high temperatures over central and southeast Illinois are in the upper 50s or lower 60s. Such values have been extremely scarce during the first week or so of this month. The map at left shows far average temperatures have been away from normal. So far, temperatures have averaged 10 to 20 degrees below normal, coldest in west central Illinois due to a couple periods of snowfall. The coldest temperatures were on the morning of April 2, following snow that fell on Easter Sunday. A narrow west-east corridor of lows in the single digits occurred from Macomb eastward to near Rantoul, and even a few sub-zero readings were logged. Paxton, in Ford County, tied the Illinois April record low temperature at -2° that morning. Our office in Lincoln reported -1°, which was the first April sub-zero reading on record, and also broke the monthly record by 15 degrees. Peoria tied their monthly record low of 14 degrees, and Springfield broke their monthly record at 16 degrees. During this period, the only day that featured 70 degree highs was on the 3rd, and that was mainly south of I-70. Points to the north have largely not seen such temperatures at all this year. In Springfield, the last time they went this deep into the year (after April 10th) without a 70 degree high was in 1984. The last couple years had 70's in February, so this year is a bit of an adjustment.