Weekly Iowa Weather Report, May 14, 2017

It was a warm week across Iowa with temperatures ranging from two to three degrees above normal over parts of northeast Iowa to around seven degrees above normal over the far southwest with a statewide average of 4.7 degrees warmer than usual.

Temperatures reached into the low nineties over far western Iowa on Monday with a highest reading of 94 degrees at Little Sioux while the most widespread warm weather arrived on Saturday and Sunday with highs in the eighties nearly statewide on both days. On the other extreme Spencer reported a low of 35 degrees on Friday morning.

Meanwhile the reporting week began with dry weather on Sunday. Showers and thunderstorms were scattered over the southwest one-half of Iowa on Monday morning with locally heavy rain of an inch or two from near Denison southeast to Creston. Additional storms developed Monday afternoon and night across the northeast one-third of the state although only a few localized areas picked up more than one-third of an inch of rain with these storms.

Tuesday was mostly dry with light rain coming late in the day over the far north. The bulk of the week’s rain came on Wednesday with rain falling over all but far northwest Iowa. Greatest rain amounts with these mid-week storms fell across the southeast one-third of Iowa where reports of two-thirds to one and one-half inches were common. The remainder of the week was dry.

No measurable rain fell during the week in far northwest Iowa at Rock Rapids and Rock Valley while a maximum reported amount of 3.49 inches fell just east of Anita in Cass County. The statewide average precipitation was 0.89 inches or just a little under the weekly normal of 1.02 inches.

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