View larger image
Generate This Chart on Website

Dry 2023

11 Dec 2023 05:30 AM
Significant precipitation events continue to be hard to come by with the most recent round over the weekend clipping southeastern Iowa with only modest totals reported. Des Moines missed out completely with just a trace reported. The featured chart presents a trailing 31 day heatmap of precipitation percent of average values. The bottom row shows the 2023 data and there is very little blue (above average) to be found since the first of April. Compare this fall with what happened last year during September and especially from November into January of this year. The wet enough period that lasted into March likely helped out just enough for crops not to be a complete failure during the growing season this year. The near term forecast looks bone dry, so our luck appears not to change any time soon.

Voting:
Good: 12
Bad: 0

Tags:   2023  

View larger image

95 Degree Hours

06 Sep 2023 05:30 AM
While the cold front that swept Iowa on Tuesday did not produce much in the way of needed rainfall, it did get rid of the hot and muggy air mass. Air temperatures were not quite as warm on Tuesday due to the extra clouds and elevated humidity, but heat index readings felt like air temperatures experienced on Labor Day. With hopefully the really hot weather now gone for the year, it is a good time to total up the number of hours spent AOA (at or above) 95 degrees. The featured map does just that and compares it against a simple past five year climatology. Positive values would indicate more hours this year vs an average of the previous five. This map tells a nice story of this year with large positive departures generally overlapping places under analyzed drought. The reason is that drier conditions changes the surface energy budget and allows for more heating. There is also a self fulfilling prophesy of having less rain implying less cloudiness and more solar heating. An additional map can be found here with the current US Drought Monitor overlain.

Voting:
Good: 14
Bad: 2

Tags:   2023  

View larger image

Hot 100s

24 Aug 2023 05:30 AM
As the saying goes, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity" was very apropos on Wednesday with a blistering combination of heat and humidity present over the state and beyond. Air temperatures hit the century mark for the first time in a long while for places like Cedar Rapids. Waterloo topped out at 105 degrees! The big story though was the oppressive humidity which started off in the morning with dew points in the upper 70s and much of the day was spent there and even in the lower 80s! Waterloo was able to reach a remarkable combination of a temperature of 102 with a 78 dewpoint. The featured table presents IEM calculated highest dew point temperatures whilst the air temperature was 100+ degrees. The Waterloo value Wednesday was the highest on record for the site. As mentioned yesterday, all of this data does not cover the 1930s, so it is difficult to make a more broad assessment on if these were higher than those of that period or not.

Voting:
Good: 15
Bad: 0

Tags:   2023  

View larger image

Cold June Morning

13 Jun 2023 05:30 AM
Our recent stretch of rather weird weather continued on Monday with low temperatures dropping into the 40s and even 30s over eastern Iowa. A NWS COOP site near Elkader (far NE Iowa) reported a low of 35 degrees and the observed denoted frost present! The featured map presents low temperature reports on Monday and the year one has to go back to find as cold of a low temperature during the month of June. Temperatures over eastern Iowa were certainly exceptional with the blue locations having to go back at least 20 years to find as cold of a temperature.

Voting:
Good: 11
Bad: 0

Tags:   june   2023  

View larger image
Generate This Chart on Website

Wet January and February

01 Mar 2023 05:30 AM
The featured chart presents the yearly combination of January precipitation vs February precipitation for Ames. Some statistical measures are shown on the plot attempting to tease out any relationship between these two variables, which there is none. What's interesting about this plot is the dot shown for 2023. The year features the first combination of January and following February with monthly precipitation totals both over two inches for Ames! A few of the other extreme years are labelled on the chart as well with the most recent comparable being 1971. Our first chance of precipitation for March arrives Thursday evening as another blockbuster storm winds up to our south and perhaps spins some winter weather our way.

Voting:
Good: 9
Bad: 0

Tags:   2023