Iowa Weekly Weather Report, October 15, 2017
It was another wet week across most of Iowa with highly variable temperatures. There were two statewide rain events with both bringing the heaviest rains to eastern Iowa.
The first rain event moved into western Iowa on Monday night and very slowly exited eastern Iowa on Thursday morning. The second rain event developed over western Iowa on Friday morning and moved out of eastern Iowa Saturday night. Between the two events rain totals exceeded an inch over most of the southeastern two-thirds of Iowa while only light rain fell across the far northwest counties.
Weekly rain totals varied from only 0.05 inches at Doon in Lyon County to 4.68 inches near Peosta in Dubuque County. The statewide average rain total was 1.54 inches while normal for the week is 0.58 inches. The statewide average precipitation already ranks as the seventh highest for October among 145 years of records with one-half of the month still ahead.
The week began with unseasonably warm weather on Sunday when highs were in the seventies and eighties statewide. The coolest weather came on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Rock Rapids reported the state’s first freeze of the season on Tuesday morning with a 31 degree temperature. A hard freeze followed the next morning over parts of extreme northwest Iowa with the lowest temperature of 25 degrees reported at Sheldon. Freezing temperatures were confined roughly along and west of a line from Estherville to Storm Lake to Logan.
Meanwhile Fort Madison reported the week’s highest temperature with an 84 degree high on Monday. However, very warm weather also returned to southeastern Iowa late in the week with highs of 80 degrees at Centerville on Friday and also at Keokuk on Saturday.
Temperatures for the week as a whole averaged from a degree or two below normal over extreme western Iowa to four to six degrees above normal over the southeast with a statewide average of 2.6 degrees above normal.
Source: Harry Hillaker, State Climatologist, Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship