Iowa Weekly Weather Summary, April 3, 2017

It was a cloudy and damp week across Iowa. Rain fell statewide on Wednesday and Thursday with the heaviest precipitation falling across the south one-half of Iowa on Wednesday where rain amounts over an inch were common. Light rain also fell over southeast Iowa Monday into Tuesday morning and over much of the state on Sunday.

Weekly precipitation totals varied from 0.25 inches at Rock Valley in the far northwest to 2.39 inches at Montrose in the far southeast. The statewide average rainfall was 1.01 inches while normal for the week is 0.61 inches. This was the wettest week in 25 weeks.

Temperatures were mostly in the forties and fifties with little change from day to day owing to persistent cloud cover. The weekly temperature extremes all came from northern Iowa where occasional clear skies allowed daytime highs to climb higher and nighttime lows to fall lower.

Lowest temperatures of 27 degrees occurred at Battle Creek, Cherokee, Mapleton, Sheldon and Sioux City on Tuesday morning and also at Cresco, Decorah, Elkader and Vinton on Saturday morning. Highest temperatures came on the same dates, and in some cases the same locations. Temperatures reached 63 degrees at Le Mars and Sioux City on Tuesday and also at Decorah on Saturday.

Temperatures for the week as a whole averaged from eight degrees above normal in far northwest Iowa to one degree below normal over the extreme southeast. Soil temperatures as of Sunday were averaging in the mid-forties over nearly all of Iowa.

Source:  Harry Hillaker, State Climatologist, Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship