State Climatologist Justin Glisan says October in Iowa was slightly wetter than average and about three degrees above normal.
“With 154 years of records, preliminarily the third warmest October on record,” Glisan told Radio Iowa today.
Due those warmer temperatures, the first frost in Iowa was delayed.”One of the latest first fall frost and freeze events that we’re seen in the recorded history,” Glisan said. “Generally the first or second week of October we see widespread frost or freeze, the killing freeze at 28 degrees. It wasn’t until about the 17th and 18th that we saw the first below freezing temperatures across the state.”
The statewide average precipitation in Iowa last month was three-tenths of an inch above normal. “Portions of central and then getting a swath of western into northeast Iowa saw above average precipitation, but overall, after a very wet September, still trending slightly above average,” Glisan said. “So if you look at meterological fall to date, September and October, about the fifth wettest and the fifth warmest on record.”
Just a few pockets of “abnormal dryness” remain in north central Iowa according to the latest Iowa Drought Monitor. “The very wet conditions that we had in September and October were a ‘drought buster,’ so going into next growing season we’re not going in dry, definitely. We’re going in near normal and that’s been a shift from the last several years,” Glisan said. “The 2020s have been a particularly dry decade for the state and many states in the upper Midwest so seeing this rainfall in Setpember and October really helped push back on those longer term deficits.”
Rain is the forecast for Election Day and then Glisan said dry conditions are expected, “at least for the first half of November.”
However, a strong El Nino weather pattern is firing more thunderstorms in the Pacific, which means temperatures will be warmer this winter and Glisan says it’s likely there will be less snow over the next several months.
