Iowa Weekly Weather Summary, July 10, 2016

The crop reporting week began with a dry and unseasonably cool Fourth of July with daytime high temperatures mostly in the seventies. However, heat and humidity made a very rapid return on Tuesday (5th) with highs in the mid-eighties northeast to mid-nineties southwest. The highest humidity levels of the year pushed the heat index to 115 degrees at Red Oak where the dew point reached an extremely high 84 degrees.

Thunderstorms brought rain to most of the east one-half of Iowa, plus west central Iowa, late on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. Heavy rain fell in east central Iowa with these storms where two to three inch amounts were common from Cedar Rapids to Clinton and Davenport. Wednesday was another very warm day but not nearly as humid as Tuesday with highs in the low eighties east to low nineties west. Thunderstorms dampened nearly all of Iowa between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. The Wednesday night rainfall brought one-half to one and one-half inches of rain to almost all of Iowa, but largely missed east central Iowa where heavy rain fell the previous night. Additionally these storms brought numerous reports of high winds, especially in west central and north central Iowa. There were some scattered thunderstorms across the northwest one-half of the state on Thursday (7th) afternoon with a few isolated reports of large hail. Dry weather with near-seasonal temperatures prevailed statewide on Friday and Saturday. Finally, showers and thunderstorms moved across about the northeast one-half of Iowa on Sunday (10th) morning.

Temperature extremes for the week varied from a Monday (4th) morning low of 49 degrees at Elkader to a Tuesday (5th) afternoon high of 95 degrees at Sidney. Temperatures for the week averaged slightly below normal northeast to slightly above normal southwest with a statewide average of 0.3 degrees below normal. Weekly rain totals varied from 0.62 inches at Orange City and 0.65 inches at Iowa City Airport to 4.14 inches at Lowden. The statewide average rain total was 1.71 inches while normal for the week is 1.07 inches.

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