Flashes of lightening and booming thunder woke many people up this morning as storms loaded with rain moved across the state.
National Weather Service metrologist Tyler Ryan says many areas got a half inch or so, but others saw much more. “You get down into southern parts of Iowa, closer over to maybe some southwestern parts of sections of Iowa. We’ve had some reports getting up to around four to even five inches of rain,” Ryan says.
He says there is a flood watch out for portions of the state. “It’s really into southeast parts of Iowa, so getting closer to, of course, over the Ottumwa area, kind of the Bloomfield area, and that’s where we’ll probably see some of the higher or the heaviest amounts of rain that we head into the afternoon,” he says.
Ryan says these storms have been noisy, but haven’t been that severe. “We did have a handful of severe thunderstorm warnings early this morning down into southeastern parts of Iowa. We did have one gust get up to around 63 miles an hour, but outside of that, we really haven’t had any reports of damage or these storms haven’t really produced a lot of wind. It’s just slow moving and producing a lot of rain,” Ryan says.
Most of the rain will move out through the day, but there is a chance for some more tonight. “We think we’re going to have some redevelopment of some showers and storms mainly in central and south-central Iowa getting over into southeastern parts of Iowa progressing into the evening hours,” he says. “So we could still see some showers and storms with that. With all the rain we’ve already seen this morning and some of the redevelopment that could lead to even possibility of maybe some flooding concerns.”
He says things should dry out a little on Thursday. “Could have a little bit of patchy fog early tomorrow morning, so that’ll be something to keep an eye out for. But we should see sunny skies return on Thursday and our next chance of rain arrives, I would say probably by Friday. Doesn’t look to be any high end events, but maybe some showers and storms again Friday heading into Friday night and then possibly a little bit dry on Saturday and Sunday,” he says.
Ryan says temperatures should be around normal in the upper 70s to low 80s. To find out more, go to weather.gov.
