It was a very dry week across Iowa. The only precipitation was a few sprinkles reported across far northern Iowa on Tuesday (12th) night. Very light rain did finally move into far western Iowa late Sunday (17th) night but occurred too late to be reflected in this week’s statistics. Typical weekly precipitation for this part of April is 0.82 inches. Meanwhile, the reporting week began with unseasonably cold weather on Monday (11th) and Tuesday (12th).

A hard freeze occurred over most of Iowa on Tuesday morning with temperatures falling as low as 16 degrees at Sheldon, Spencer, and Webster City. However, with only a few exceptions, Tuesday morning temperatures were not as cold as were reported with the freeze back on Saturday, April 9. A rapid warm-up commenced across western Iowa on Wednesday (13th) with temperatures above normal statewide by Thursday. Temperatures were well above normal everywhere during the weekend. Daytime highs reached 80 degrees at Little Sioux and Sioux City on Wednesday while sunny skies allowed readings to climb even higher across eastern Iowa over the weekend when Davenport reached 84 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday.

Temperatures for the week as a whole averaged from two degrees above normal over far southeast Iowa to nine degrees above normal over the far northwest with a statewide average of 5.6 degrees above normal. Soil temperatures at the four inch depth were averaging in the mid to upper fifties statewide as of Sunday (17th).

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

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