Summer officially arrives in Iowa at 8:48 tonight. That’ll put a cap on a spring that’s been filled with heavy rain, tornadoes and flooding — but State Climatologist Harry Hillaker says the spring of 2000 will still go down as a dry, warm season.It was the 8th warmest spring on record and the 19th driest in the 128 years of Iowa weather record keeping. It was about three degrees warmer than normal and we got three fewer inches of rain than normal. But some parts of the state received nearly six inches last week alone. Hillaker says parts of northeastern Iowa got a drenching during this spring. He says they’ve caught up, but southern and western Iowa are still behind in rain.As for the summer ahead, Hillaker says the dry, warm spring was a good preview. He expects more of the same..Hillaker says predictions for the Iowa summer are no longer as bleak as they were a month ago, but he still expects the months ahead to be drier and warmer than normal.
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