The Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM) collects environmental data from cooperating members with observing networks. The data are stored and made available on this website.

IEM Daily Feature

2026 RAGBRAI Stats

Posted: 28 Jul 2026 05:30 AM, Views: 366
Tags:   ragbrai  
Held during the last full week of July, RAGBRAI is a seven day bike ride from west to east across Iowa. This year's event finished up this past weekend with most days being rather pleasant for biking and overnight camping. The featured chart presents two weather metrics during each year's ride using the Des Moines airport data as a representative proxy for statewide conditions. Of course a more rigorous weather analysis could be done using more route specific airport station data, but the chart hopefully is a close approximation. The top panel shows the number of hours each year with a heat index of at least 85°F. The bottom panel analyzes wind speed and direction, producing an averaged vector component wind in the east/west direction. For the bottom chart, red values would indicate a net average head wind. So the top panel shows the reduced number of hours with 85+°F heat index vs a long term simple average and even the past three years. The bottom panel as well shows a reduced head winds vs the previous three years.
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Previous Years' Features
Denison Hwy 59 SB, IA Webcam:
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Data from the Iowa State Soil Moisture Network is found on this website and daily soil temperature averages are used to produce the highlighted analysis.

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