IARN — The latest outlooks from the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center show elevated chances of unseasonable warmth and dryness for Iowa in December.
Iowa state climatologist Dr. Justin Glisan says in November, much of the state experienced above average temperatures with heavy winds, which continued to dry out subsoil profiles.
“December, January, and February is the driest season for the state of Iowa and much of the Midwest,” Glisan said. “Not a good signal for subsoil recharge, but that temperature signal does give us some hope that if we do get precipitation that it will be in the liquid form as we saw in 2018 when we had a statewide average temperature of 5.1 degree above average. So, we didn’t get a lot of snowfall in December in 2018. Any precipitation that fell was rain, so we did get good infiltration into the subsoil.”
Glisan says the driest part of the state continues to be the western half.
“Thinking of dry subsoil, especially in western Iowa, dryer soils do freeze faster, and they will freeze deeper if we do get into an extended period of colder conditions,” Glisan said. “The hope here is that warmer signal will give us a shot if we do get precipitation to get some infiltration into the subsoil.”
The eastern portion of Iowa hasn’t experienced dry conditions for some time now, and the US Drought Monitor on Thursday even showed some improvement in southeast Iowa.
“We saw a slight improvement in southeastern Iowa where we had D0, abnormal dry, conditions,” Glisan said. “The last seven to 14 days we have had an active storm track across southeastern Iowa and that’s where we saw anywhere from 1-2 inches of precipitation. That’s a pretty good amount of rain and some snow that helped improve those conditions.”
The latest US Drought Monitor can be viewed here.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
Image source: NWS-NOAA
