With the Fourth of July weekend just ahead, the forecast calls for hot, dry weather to roll into Iowa just in time for the holiday.
D-T-N meteorologist Bryce Anderson says within days, we’ll be going from overnight lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s to highs well into the 90s, with heat indices likely into the triple-digits.
“Things are going to start acting a little bit more like summertime around here and it’s high time because June has not been that great,” Anderson says. “It’s been cool. It’s been rainy. It’s been very stormy. There’s a lot of row crops that are behind normal, behind average as far as the progress goes. We really need to have some heat to get things underway.”
Anderson says the warmer temperatures forecast for later this week will be good news for Iowa’s various crops, especially the corn.
“Some of that heat that has just smothered the Southern Plains, down into Florida, Georgia and so forth, that’s going to move northward,” Anderson says. “We are going to have temperatures that are more in the normal to above-normal category. Rainfall is also going to tail off a bit and at this time, I think that’s all to the good.”
The forecast may make a lot of people hot, sticky and uncomfortable, but the farmers will love it. Because of the cool, wet spring, Anderson says the steamy temperatures will be welcomed by growers, as hot weather is key in proper crop development.
“It could be hot and humid but actually for corn, that would be very good,” he says. “This corn crop needs to have a little more tropical-like conditions to really start to get established and make some headway. We’re looking at quite a little of the corn crop nationally that’s not going to be pollinating until the month of August. That’s pretty late.”
Forecasters say today’s highs in the 70s and 80s across Iowa will give way to the upper 80s and low 90s tomorrow and mid-90s by Thursday.