Despite a few hot days and some heavy downpours in parts of Iowa, state climatologist Harry Hillaker says the state overall ended the month of May with both near-normal warmth and rainfall. Hillaker says, “For the statewide average, very close to normal both for temperatures and precipitation, although certainly the last week of the month we were much warmer than usual and also much wetter than usual at the tail end of the month.”

The warmest day in Iowa for the month was May 6th when it reached 90 degrees in Cedar Rapids and Hawarden. The lowest temperature was set on May 15th with 27 degrees in Cresco, Decorah and Elkader. While most of eastern Iowa was drier than normal, much of Iowa’s western third got a drenching during May, wrapping up the month much wetter than normal.

“The largest rain totals that I’ve seen, Atlantic in southwest Iowa had 10.75 inches of rain there,” Hillaker says. “That was helped a lot by about 6 inches during the last week of the month, locally very heavy rains.” One of the driest places in the state was the Des Moines area, with just 2.6 inches of rain during May. The forecast for the month of June calls for slightly cooler-than-normal temperatures and near-normal rainfall.

(Radio Iowa)