Summer made an abrupt and powerful first appearance in Iowa on Monday with high temperatures soaring into the low 90s over much of the state along with dew point temperatures in the lower 70s. This drove heat index values into the mid 90s and even helped to fuel early evening thunderstorms. For Ames, this was the first day this year with an appreciable heat index reading! The featured chart looks into the precedent of having such a warm first heat index of the year and the largest jump up in year to date max index. The two assumptions made for the chart include setting a first heat index reading of 80 degrees and only including events with the heat index being additive of the air temperature. The 2022 value of 16.4 represents yesterday's max value of 96.4 being 16.4 degrees warmer than the assumed previous max for the year of 80. The top panel shows the max increase in daily heat index with the second panel showing the actual interval for that increase. The bottom panel shows the value of the first daily max for the year. So yesterday's event was rather exceptional! Note: due to the plo'ts very pigeon-holed nature, there is no autoplot tool to generate it at this time, sorry.

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