Poor weather likely to spoil Ohio's spring turkey-hunting season opener

After a gobbling-good bit of weather for Ohio’s youth-only wild turkey-hunting season it’s all downhill for the rest of us.

Sunny skies, light winds and above average temperatures graced the woods Saturday (April 18) for Ohio’s two-day/youth-only wild turkey-hunting season.

Best guess for Monday’s (April 19) start of the general spring wild turkey-hunting season calls for wind, rain, and eventual cooling temperatures. In short, might be better to go into work and ask human resources if you can take those vacation days later in the season.

Overnight up to one-half inch of rain may fall with up to another one-quarter inch on Monday.

More specifically, the current forecast picture for much of Ohio on Monday is being painted with an 80-percent chance of thundershowers, a high in the mid-60s, and winds of 10 to 20 miles per hour.

The rains are projected to linger through Wednesday night and accompanied by unseasonably (and uncharitably) below average temperatures.

In Northeast Ohio that includes high temperatures only in the mid-50s for Tuesday falling to less than 50 degrees for Thursday.

The National Weather Service is projecting the sun won’t dominate the sky until Saturday, either.

Much the same is being forecasted for central Ohio - including a Monday dominated by rain showers - with the possibility of clear skies but windy conditions on Tuesday. Daytime highs for the period are forecast to range in the mid- to upper-50s.

Conditions might be marginally better in southern Ohio and along the Ohio River. Here the chance for rain on Monday is just 30-percent with clouds and rain returning on Tuesday and fading by Thursday.

The high temperatures during this period are forecast to running the upper-50s to the low-60s.

A Hazardous Weather notice is posted for all of Ohio for tonight with the possibility of a general rain, heavy rain, thunderstorms, and high winds all likely and pretty much throughout the state.

And it does appear the further one hunts in the Ohio the better the weather forecast is for Tuesday, though – and, again – a general statewide rain forecast.

Now where we see some divergence is when we compare the National Weather Service forecast when placed alongside that of AccuWeather, the State College, PA-based private weather forecast business.

Here we see that in Northeast Ohio turkey hunters may encounter a break in any rainfall from about 9 a.m. until the daily closure at noon. However, rain is still anticipated during the first couple of hours of the season’s opening day.

Worse, turkey hunters will be dealing with sustained winds of up to 20 miles per hour during the morning’s allotted hunting hours.

Dicier is the Monday morning forecast for central Ohio.

AccuWeather is projecting that here thunderstorms (yes, with lightening) are likely at around 6 a.m., diminishing by 7 a.m. and returning around noon with cloudy skies sandwiched between the T-showers.

Potentially for Monday, says AccuWeather, southern Ohio turkey hunters may see the worst of the weather lot.

The AccuWeather projection for Monday in this region includes thunderstorms at 6 a.m., diminishing by 7 a.m. but returning by 10 a.m.

Alas, southern Ohio is expected to experience the highest gusts of winds with sustained speeds also of up to 25 mph.

In short, wear raingear and stay in the car until after the thunder and lightning have stopped.

Or else roll over in bed, hit the “off” button or at least the “snooze” alarm.

By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Jeff is the retired News-Herald reporter who  covered the earth sciences, the area's three county park systems and the outdoors for the newspaper. During his 30 years with The News-Herald Jeff was the recipient of more than 100 state, regional and national journalism awards. He also is a columnist and features writer for the Ohio Outdoor News, which is published every other week and details the outdoors happenings in the state.