How does a weather guy sum up the month of April?

"Nothing bad happened," said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The fourth month of 2005 was a little bit warmer than normal, but not too much. There was a little more precipitation than average, but not enough to overcome the previous deficit. And there were no severe thunderstorm warnings, although there were a few stray storms and even a little hail.

At 3.68 inches, precipitation was about an inch more than normal. The rain gave some limited relief to those concerned about drought.

The governor declared a statewide drought March 10, but almost immediately after the announcement, normal weather conditions — rain, in other words — returned. Although the drought declaration wasn't lifted, April continued the trend toward more typical weather behavior.

"It put a little bit of a dent in there, but not really enough to wipe out all the fears," Burg said.

Data gathered from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport still show a shortfall of about 7 inches for the "water year," which coincides with the wet season that began in October.

Precipitation fell on just over half of the days last month.

The average temperature in April was 50.8 degrees, just 0.6 degrees above normal.

On April 22, the temperature hit 78 degrees, which tied a previous record.

Overall, Burg said, "it wasn't a boring month, but a lot of stuff didn't happen, either."

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com