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Hot, Humid, and Windy!!!

04 Oct 2018 05:35 AM
Iowa's weather on October 3rd was nothing sort of amazing and exceptional. The day featured a rare combination of heat, humidity, and wind. While windy conditions frequently happen with hot temperatures, the winds tend to be dry and also mix out humidity located near the ground which both tend to lower dew points. Wednesday's setup was aided by tropical moisture advecting our way from the southwest, so strong southwesterly winds which are typically dry were not so for this event. The featured chart presents some selected observations and a count of previous hourly reports with as hot, humid, and windy report. The chart shows that very few analogs exist. This event was very rare and not even to mention that it happened in October!

Voting:
Good: 17
Bad: 1

Tags:   2018   extreme  

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Biggest Changes

21 Feb 2011 09:38 PM
Recently, Bartlesville Oklahoma went from a low temperature of -28 F on the 10th of February to a high temperature of 82 F on the 17th. This is a remarkable 110 degree change on the seventh day. Can any site in Iowa compete with this? The featured chart presents an IEM computation of historical climate data in Iowa and the largest value is 106 degree change on the 9th day. This happened during a remarkable period in February 1930 for Webster City after a low temperature of -34 was followed by highs in the 60s and then 72 on the 24th. Please note that the number for the 0th day is simply the difference between the high and low temperature (Tripoli 18 Jan 1996).

Voting:
Good: 13
Bad: 3

Tags:   climate   high   low   extreme  

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How fleeting are hot or cold days?

07 Jan 2011 05:56 AM
The featured chart presents the average temperature departure from average after a day that has either a high temperature two standard deviations (two sigma) warmer than average or a low temperature two sigma colder than average. You could think of this plot as examining how persistent really warm or cold days are. The plot is divided up by seasons showing how warm temperatures in the summer time tend to stick around longer than in the other seasons. Warm weather in the winter time is not as fleeting as one might have expected. Cold weather tends to stick around slightly more in the winter time than other seasons. Very cold air is set to arrive this weekend and stick around for most of next week.

Voting:
Good: 20
Bad: 7

Tags:   climate   high   low   extreme  

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80 degrees in 12 hours

16 Dec 2008 06:15 AM
The cold front passage on Sunday was one for the record books due to the drastic and rapid change in temperature. Today's featured plot is a time series from Ottumwa showing an amazing drop of 80 degrees in 12 hours. Note this is a drop from an air temperature of 60 to a wind chill value of -20. The actual air temperature drop was around 60 degrees in just 12 hours! Some analysis is currently being done to compare this drop to others in the past, stay tuned.

Voting:
Good: 33
Bad: 16

Tags:   coldfront   extreme