The new week got off to a spectacular start with sunshine, low humidity, and seasonal highs in the low to mid 80s. That's in stark contrast to last week when steamy and in some areas stormy conditions prevailed. In fact, some part of my area had rain on all seven days days from last Monday to the Sunday just past. Over the 7 day period some really impressive rain numbers were put up across northern Iowa where amounts greater than 10 inches were measured. Unfortunately, much o

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana shortly before noon on Sunday. Ida was a powerful category four hurricane at the time with winds of 150 mph. An awful situation unfolded throughout the day on Sunday. The winds are one part of it, but the bigger part is the water. The storm has been pushing water onshore and leading to flooding. Hopefully levees hold up along the coastal state and mitigate it - especially compared to what happened 16 years ago (August 29, 2005) when Hu

Many parts of the Midwest have been in dire need of rain. Unfortunately that rain has come with damaging winds, large hail, tornadoes and flooding. Just this week there's been several tornadoes and unfortunately a lot of crop damage in Iowa due to strong winds. Friday night heavy rain continued up in northern Iowa (also where tornadoes were reported) and led to flooding of highways, homes, and rivers. This is Highway 18 near Fredericksburg via the Fire Department. Unfortunate

Our weekend got off to a sizzling start Friday. For a change there were no convective boundaries or forcing in place to set off storms during the day. As a result with a highly capped atmosphere sunny skies and very steamy conditions prevailed throughout the area. Highs in most spots were in the range of 90-92 with heat index values as high as 102. While there was limited rain in my area Friday, that was not the case just to the north were much of northern Iowa and southern M

Not that I wanted or needed one, but the weather this week has certainly provided me with a challenge. Thursday was the 4th consecutive day with rain in some part of my area and the streak will be extended several more days as the "ring of fire" pattern remains alive and well. The challenge the pattern presents is determining when and where thunderstorm clusters are going to develop. Thursday evening three of these clusters were showing up from Minnesota into Iowa and Missour