HUMIDITY PUMMELS REGION

An abrupt temperature change has given area residents a hot and sweaty welcome to spring.

Temperatures in Cape Girardeau on Monday approached the record high of 85 set in 1995. But even without a record, area meteorologists said it feels hotter than normal for April due to a combination of temperate heat and high humidity.

And with a lingering front bringing a chance of daily thunderstorms through Wednesday, the unseasonably warm weather is likely to remain for a while.

"This kind of heat without high humidity really wouldn't impact many people," said National Weather Service meteorologist Kelly Hooper of Paducah, Ky. "This has been closer to a typical year than the previous couple of years."

Local climatologist Dr. Al Robertson said the weather is an anomaly caused because the jet stream is farther north than normal for early spring.

"We're getting the warm tropical air," he said.

Humidity measurements, which linger around 50 percent during the daytime hours but have climbed to around 90 percent in the evenings, would have affected more than personal comfort levels without the gusty winds as high as 43 mph the region has experienced.

Hooper said area residents may have forgotten what the normal climate for the region feels like because of warmer-than-normal winters over the past two years. Weather changes quickly in the Midwest, but the return of cold, winter temperatures in the last season and the rapid change in temperatures may have been a shock to many residents.

"We went from cold to hot as opposed to cold to warm to hot," he said. "The rapid change instead of the seasonal, tranquil change would be the biggest impact on people."