Past IEM Features tagged: jul12
No rain for July
03 Aug 2012 05:45 AMRainfall was difficult to come by in July for Iowa. The featured map is an analysis of July total of daily NWS COOP rainfall reports. There are a few zeros on the map north and east of Omaha! To have a dry month is a rare event, but for that month to be in the middle of summer is even rarer. Even the lucky spots in the state that got upwards of four inches were below average for the month. The first part of August and the near term forecast do not hold out much hope for the hot and dry weather to change anytime soon.
Voting:
Good: 239
Bad: 45
Tags: jul12
A July for the records
01 Aug 2012 05:43 AMJuly has mercifully come to a close. It goes into the record books as one of the hottest and driest July's on record. The featured chart presents three metrics of how warm it was. The top graph displays the number of days each July that the high temperature was at least 90 degrees. For Des Moines, July 2012 saw 27 days, which is the most of any month on record! The middle chart presents average daily high temperature and this year was easily the warmest since 1936. The bottom chart is of average daily low temperature and it comes in second warmest behind last year. You may recall that July 2011 was very humid, which promotes warm over night low temperatures. Will August be a warm and dry repeat of July?
Voting:
Good: 73
Bad: 18
Tags: jul12
Hot hourly temperatures
24 Jul 2012 06:00 AMMonday was yet another scorcher in Iowa with high temperatures near or above 100 degrees. Des Moines hit 105, which set a new daily record. The featured illegible table shows the hourly temperature reports for Des Moines on Monday and the last date in the observational record with a temperature as warm as that for the site. For example, the 102 at 1 PM was the warmest 1 PM temperature since 14 July 1936! Temperatures this Tuesday morning are starting off very warm again, so we may challenge these values today and again tomorrow. The good news is that cooler weather is expected after Wednesday along with some chances of rain.
Voting:
Good: 77
Bad: 5
Tags: jul12
Can we beat July 1936?
18 Jul 2012 05:47 AMThe month of July 1936 is easily the warmest month on record for Des Moines. Records are meant to be broken and this July has certainly taken a run for its money at this record. The featured chart presents the daily high and low temperatures for this July and 1936. The running monthly average temperature is shown as well. This year (red line) actually started off warmer than 1936, but the 15 straight days above 100 in 1936 certainly set a high bar to exceed. So can this July break the record? The green dots represent a minimum scenario of having daily high temperatures at 98 and low temperature at 78. Such a scenario for each day for the rest of the month would nudge this year above 1936. It does appear unlikely this will happen, but 2012 will have a good chance of finishing the second warmest month on record.
Voting:
Good: 77
Bad: 18
Tags: jul12
Setting Records in July
08 Jul 2012 11:03 AMThe forgettable week of blistering hot weather for Iowa has mostly come to an end this Sunday. The high temperature in Des Moines hit 100+ degrees for four straight days, but only on Saturday did it tie a previously set record. The featured chart presents the dates and years of daily high temperature records being set or tied. Of note, is the lack of events in July as shown by the highlighted area. In fact, it has been since 1955 that a record was either tied or set in July for Des Moines! The plot overall shows a lack of new records in the summer months. A common explanation for this is that our increased agricultural activity has increased dew points during the summer months through increased plant transpiration. Heating this moisture rich air takes more energy and acts to suppress high temperatures in the mid afternoon. Or others may say that the dust bowl era (1930s) rewrote our summertime records to levels that will be very difficult to exceed without another organized large scale drought event.
Voting:
Good: 109
Bad: 20
Tags: jul12 july