According to Harry Hillaker, State Climatologist, Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship,the past week began with very warm and humid weather.

Sunday afternoon temperatures were in the mid-80s to lower 90s statewide. A strong cold front slowly moved into the state on Monday with highs reaching only the upper fifties in the far northwest while lower nineties persisted over the east. Parts of eastern Iowa were in the low eighties on Tuesday while northwestern Iowa saw highs in the mid-sixties. The remainder of the week brought seasonal to slightly warmer than normal weather.

Temperature extremes for the week varied from highs of 93 degrees at Iowa City on Sunday and Monday while Cresco recorded a low of 35 degrees on Saturday morning. Temperatures for the week as a whole averaged 5.4 degrees above normal.

Showers and thunderstorms slowly spread eastward across the state from Sunday afternoon into Tuesday morning. Heaviest rains were across the northwest one-half of the state where one to two inch amounts were common. Rain over the east central and southeast Iowa was mostly under one-half inch with some areas, such as Dubuque, Iowa City, Davenport and Mount Pleasant seeing no rain at all. Some light to moderate rain fell over far northwestern Iowa late Saturday into Sunday morning. Otherwise dry weather prevailed statewide from Tuesday afternoon through Saturday.

Mondamin in Harrison County reported the most rain for the week with 4.16 inches. The statewide average rainfall was 0.90 inches while normal for the week is 0.72 inches. Record low September rain totals were recorded at Anamosa (0.36 inches) and Dubuque Lock & Dam (0.23). Even lower September monthly totals (as low as 0.05 inches) were recorded in the Burlington area but ranked behind the trace amounts reported in 1979 in that corner of the state.

Source:  Iowa Department of Ag

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