• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Fires/Accidents/Disasters / Iowans are warned to fight their burning desires due to high wildfire risks

Iowans are warned to fight their burning desires due to high wildfire risks

March 5, 2020 By Matt Kelley

Iowans are warned not to do any outdoor burning today as the risk of wildfires is highly elevated.

Meteorologist Craig Cogil, at the National Weather Service in Johnston, says all three tiers of counties across southern Iowa are under a Red Flag Warning, essentially everything south of Interstate 80.

“We have a combination of relatively mild temperatures, low relative humidities and strong winds, generally above 25 miles an hour and certainly, the winds are going to be plenty strong today,” Cogil says. “In those conditions, especially with dry grasses and that area of the state hasn’t seen a lot of rain lately, if you do get a fire, they tend to spread very rapidly.”

Parts of southern Iowa have only gotten a quarter-inch of rain in the past month, less than 25% of average. With still-warmer weather forecast for the weekend, is it possible we’ve already seen the last of winter? Cogil’s doubtful.

“We’re going to see highs up into the 60s and even into next week,” Cogil says. “It doesn’t look like we’re seeing any real big cold push down into the state over the next week. Winter is certainly taking a sidestep away from us for the timebeing but certainly as we head through the end of the month and into early April, we could still see it rear its ugly head again.”

A splendid late winter weekend is just ahead, Cogil says, as we’ll have mostly sunny skies and temperatures more than 20-degrees warmer than normal.

“We’re looking at mid 60s on Saturday and then Sunday, yeah, we’ll be approaching 70 degrees,” Cogil says. “Both days, we’ll see pretty strong south to southwest wind as well.”

Spring arrives March 19th.

 

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, News

Featured Stories

Exhibit features lesser known works of Grant Wood

Testing finds 21 new CWD cases in deer

It may become a crime in Iowa to use fake urine in workplace drug tests

February trending 18 degrees below average temperature

Iowa House Education Committee votes to end tenure at UI, ISU, UNI

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Confusion at MVC Tournament as UNI exits prior to quarterfinal round game

Iowa State looks to avoid winless Big-12 season

New look and new format at girls’ state basketball

Youngstown State takes action against assistant football coach

Iowa’s Jack Nunge lost for the season

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2021 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC