On the afternoon of May 21, 2024, a tornado tore across Iowa. It formed in the state’s heartland, gray and wide above the cornfields. Then it began to barrel directly toward the National Weather Service office in Des Moines. According to Iowa State University meteorology professor William Gallus, the station had a plan. “If a […]
Weather
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Holiday Market at Robert A. Lee Recreation Center canceled after NWS issues ice storm warning for Saturday
The Holiday Market at Robert A. Lee Recreation Center scheduled for Saturday has been canceled, the Iowa City Department of Parks and Recreation announced Friday morning. The cancellation came after the National Weather Service issued an ice storm warning for several eastern Iowa counties, including Johnson County. The ice storm warning runs from midnight to […]
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Peak Iowa: Storm names coined in the state
It’s probably best not to dwell on what it says about life in Iowa that the names of two fearsome types of weather originated here. But in 1870, a northwest Iowa newspaper attached an already violence-laced word to the most violent sort of snowstorm, and 18 years later, a former UI professor borrowed the Spanish […]
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Iowa was one of eight states setting records during the country’s ‘warmest winter on record’
The seasons don’t officially change until next week when the spring equinox occurs at 10:06 p.m. (central time) on Tuesday, but meteorological winter is already over and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has now confirmed what seemed obvious on many days these past few months. “Meteorological winter was the warmest winter on record for […]
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Once Iowa storm chasers hunt down a supercell, there’s no turning back
As soon as Mark De Bruin had a car and a license, he was chasing storms. “Since I was a little kid, I would always go out on the porch and watch whatever storm came by my house, and I always just found them so fascinating,” said De Bruin, a junior meteorology major at Iowa […]
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Muggy out? Blame the corn.
As someone who grew up in semi-tropical south Louisiana, I didn’t think Iowa had anything to teach me about humidity. I was wrong. Iowa, of course, is the most corn-centric of the states. Last year, cornfields made up more than a third of its total landmass. And with corn comes corn sweat. Like other plants, […]
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There is no bad weather
Brother Snow. Sister Rain. Auntie Sunshine. Uncle Cloudy. Grandfather Cold. Grandmother Warmth. Cousin Storm. Mother Earth. Welcome to the family of weather — our kin. Ecological understanding is about wholeness, knowing that the earth — as a whole system, organism or being (what many call Gaia) — comprises diverse, interdependent beings (or organisms, if you […]
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Iowa City Community School District cancels classes for Thursday due to extreme cold
The Iowa City Community School District announced on Wednesday evening it had canceled all classes for Thursday “due to extremely cold temperatures.” The district also canceled its grab-and-go meal service for the day. Iowa City Schools will cancel all classes for Thursday, January 6, 2022, due to extremely cold temperatures. Please note, there will be […]
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Wonkette: Texans don’t care for your heathen Muslim dust storms, National Weather Service
Like the good, decent, patriotic paranoid wingnuts of Arizona a couple years back, the good, decent, patriotic paranoid wingnuts of Texas know a threat to…
