Weekly Weather Update, June 26, 2016

It was another hotter than normal week across Iowa with highly variable precipitation. Daytime temperatures reached into the nineties somewhere in the state on every day except Thursday (23rd).

Temperature extremes varied from a Tuesday (21st) morning low of 49 degrees at Elkader to a Wednesday (22nd) afternoon high of 97 degrees at Lamoni. Temperatures for the week as a whole averaged from about two degrees above normal northeast to five degrees above normal southwest with a statewide average of 3.2 degrees higher than usual.

Showers and thunderstorms were scattered over the southern one-third of the state on Monday (20th) with some localized heavy rain in far southwest Iowa where Sidney reported 3.55 inches.

Rain fell across the northeast two-thirds of the state between Tuesday (21st) evening and Wednesday (22nd) morning with very heavy rain centered upon the Iowa City area with 5.65 inches measured at North Liberty. Thursday and Friday were dry statewide while there were a few isolated areas of light rain on Saturday from southwest into north central Iowa. Finally, showers and thunderstorms dampened much of southwest, central, northeast and east central Iowa on Saturday (25th) night.

No rain fell during the past week over parts of west central Iowa, such as Storm Lake, Sac City, Rockwell City and Denison while on the other extreme North Liberty picked up 7.47 inches. The statewide average precipitation was 1.18 inches, exactly matching the normal for the week.

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