June ended up hotter and drier than normal

The state’s climatologist says the month of June finished hotter and warmer than normal. Harry Hillaker says the second half of the month turned from cool and wet to hot and dry — leading to a warmer than normal month. The overall average temperature was two-point-six degrees above normal, breaking a string of four consecutive cooler Junes. The state got just three-point-five-six inches of rain, about an inch below normal. Hesays the western half of the state was the driest. From Des Moines west and southward, the area has had less than a tenth-of-an-inch of rain in the last two weeks. Areas along the Mississippi, though, had some heavy rainfalls. Hillaker says the farther east you go, the wetter it was.He says June of “aught-two” was also out of the ordinary for its lack of severe storms, as May and June are typically the biggest months of the year for severe weather.Hillaker says the warm, dry weather is likely to continue in July.It still looks to be warm in the foreseeable future, but shouldn’t be as warm as it has been the last two weeks of June.