State climatologist Justin Glisan says May was a quiet month for severe weather, after the record-setting and deadly May we had last year.
“We had no reported tornadoes across the state. We had one severe wind report in eastern Iowa and then several hail reports basically along Interstate 35 from north to south,” Glisan says. He says that’s the exact opposite of May 2024 numbers. “We had 47 tornadoes, 248 severe wind reports, and 82 hail reports,” he says.
Glisan says our mild weather was is due to drier conditions, while the southern U-S has been battered this spring. “Much of the severe weather has been locked in across the southern states, and that’s where we’ve seen the active pattern just basically persisting across the southern states,” he says. It was the first time since May 2010 that Iowa had no tornadoes reported.
Glisan says May’s moisture didn’t help the area that needed it most. “About 2 inches below what we would expect across the state and the driest conditions that we’ve seen were particularly in southwestern Iowa,” Glisan says, “where we had anywhere from 2 to 3 inches below average. So the driest part of the state getting about 60% of normal.”
He says it should have been a month where southwest Iowa caught up on rain. “May is the wettest month climatologically for the southern third of the state. So when you see these types of precipitation deficits, that’s where you see drought expansion, and we have about seven percent of moderate drought across the state, with a larger pocket in that southwestern corner,” he says.
Glisan says May was a tale of two temperatures. “If you split the month and half the first half was trending anywhere from 4 to 5 degrees above average, second half about 5 to 6 degrees below average,” he says. “So overall, if you look at the statewide average temperature coming in right around 60 degrees, and that’s what we expect. So, at least a bull’s-eye on the temperature,” Glisan says.
Glisten says the drier, warmer stretches did work out well for farmers who were trying to get their crops planted.