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Missouri River levels dropping in effort to prevent flooding

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Gavins Point Dam

Water levels on the Missouri River are gradually falling as releases from Gavins Point Dam near Yankton have been cut back in the past several days.

Dave Becker, operations manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Gavins Point, says it’s in response to high water and flooding in communities further south along the river basin.

“We cut our flows initially from 31,000 down to 29,000 cubic feet per second and now they’re down to 26,000 to help the folks out,” Becker says. “We just had some really heavy fall rains the last ten days downstream.” River levels have dropped about three feet below the dam. Becker says releases are being reduced upstream as well so more water will be retained in the reservoirs.

Becker says, “Our hydrologists really have to time the releases correctly between Fort Randall and us because it takes about a day for their water to get to us.” Becker says all of the extra water being held back may mean a longer navigation season from Sioux City downstream.

“Because we had a little wetter year than normal, we had about an additional 12% of water in the Missouri basin,” Becker says. “Our navigation season may even go a little beyond Thanksgiving.” Higher-than-normal releases may be needed later this year to draw down the reservoirs to winter levels.

(By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton)

Three Iowa Emergency Management staffers deployed for FEMA operations

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Dennis Harper and Pat Hall.

Three state employees are providing temporary help to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Governor Kim Reynolds says FEMA has been “stretched thin” due to the hurricanes and wildfires that have struck “more than a dozen states,” so three officials from the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management are being deployed to assist in FEMA operations.

Pat Hall and Dennis Harper have each worked for the state’s disaster-response agency for more than 20 years. They left Friday for Puerto Rico and are expected to be there at least a month. Tomorrow, Joyce Flinn, who’s a senior operations administrator for Iowa Emergency Management, will leave for two weeks of work at FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center in Washington, D.C.. She worked there for two weeks in September as well.

Another Iowa Emergency Management staffer worked directly for FEMA for two weeks in September.

There’s a mutual aid agreement among state disaster relief agencies and FEMA. Iowa Emergency Management staff have deployed out-of-state to help in previous disasters like Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey in 2012.

Photo courtesy of Iowa Emergency Management.

First frost of the year expected to hit northwest Iowa

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For the first time this season, parts of Iowa are under a Freeze Warning and residents in the far northwestern counties will need to take precautions if they hope to save their flowers and garden vegetables.

Meteorologist Mike Fuhs, at the National Weather Service bureau in Sioux Falls, says the Freeze Warning runs from midnight tonight through 9 A.M. on Tuesday.

“In Lyon County, up in the far northwest corner, we are expecting temperatures to dip down to 32-degrees or less,” Fuhs says. “In the Frost Advisory counties, we are expecting a bit more mild temperatures with readings dropping down into the 33- to 34-degree range.”

Neighboring Osceola and Sioux counties are the ones under the Frost Advisory. Iowans in those areas who have still have blooming flowers, tomatoes on the vine or other tender vegetation, should cover those plants tonight with sheets, blanket or styrofoam cones.

“This is the type of a freeze and frost that should not get down to the 20-to-25-degree range which would just kill everything,” Fuhs says. “Staying in the upper 20s and lower 30s, if you cover your vegetation up, it’s possible it will survive until the next freeze.”

While parts of central Iowa saw highs on Sunday in the 80s, Fuhs says that weather is gone for now, as a mostly-chilly week is ahead. “We’re looking at near-normal to just below-normal temperatures,” Fuhs says. “They will modify a little bit so we’re not expecting any more in the way of frost and freeze for the rest of the week but by the same token, it will have a difficult time warming up. Our warmest day of the week will probably be Thursday when temperatures get up into the upper 60s.”

Parts of central and southern Iowa may see highs in the low 70s on Thursday. Tonight’s first freeze for northwest Iowa is right on schedule, he says, as it usually arrives within the first ten days of October.

September ended on a run of hot days for an overall warmer month

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September wrapped up as a very warm, dry month for Iowa, an about-face from the month before.

State climatologist Harry Hillaker says during the last week in the month, Iowans endured temperatures much warmer than normal, well into the 90s in many areas.

“The month started out rather on the cooler side. The first seven or eight days, temperatures were well below normal,” Hillaker says. “The rest of the month, with a few small exceptions, was very much on the warmer side. The month as a whole ended up being about 4 degrees above normal for temperatures.”

It ended up being the 11th warmest September in Iowa out of 145 years of record-keeping. Coincidentally, the prior month was the 12th coolest August in Iowa on record. The hottest day of September fell on the 23rd when Iowa City reported 95 degrees, while the coldest report was 35 degrees, both on September 7th in Stanley and on September 30th in Cresco.

Rainfall during September was widely varied across Iowa. “A very dry first half of the month, very little rain anywhere in the state the first half of September,” Hillaker says, “but the rainfall became much more common in the second half of the month, though most areas ended up well below normal.”

While the Fairfield and Ottumwa area was among the driest areas in the state, a storm system on September 20th into the 21st dumped almost eight inches of rain on that area. It ended up making Fairfield/Ottumwa the wettest area in Iowa for September, with nearly nine inches of rain during the month. Burlington had the least rain with only five-hundredths of an inch for the month. As for the month ahead, Hillaker says October promises to be a bit wetter than usual and a potential rollercoaster for temperatures.

“Expecting temperatures to average warmer than normal for the month of October, although it does look like we’ll have a fairly cool period for the second week in the month,” Hillaker says. “It’s expected to warm up again after that. On rainfall, it’s slightly favoring above-normal precipitation.” He says substantial rainfall is possible during this first week in the month.

(Thanks to Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)

Iowa native making due after Hurricane Maria batters Puerto Rico

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NASA photo of Hurricane Maria.

A western Iowa native who now lives in Puerto Rico says riding out Hurricane Irma followed by another hit from Hurricane Maria has been a horrible experience that’s left most of the island devastated.

Sadie Gray, who’s originally from Denison, says she is getting by but there’s little left of the island and what’s there is battered and a “hot mess” from the one-two punch from the hurricanes.

“We were still hurting from Irma and Irma wasn’t even that bad for us,” Gray says. “Before Maria came, we had friends (nearby) who still didn’t have power and this was two weeks after Irma came to town. People haven’t had power for going on almost a month now. We got our power back after Irma, three days after she was done. We’re still on generator power.” Gray says the whole island is suffering.

“It’s a mess,” she says. “I’m standing in my back yard right now because it’s where I get a good cell signal and I’m looking at what used to be a forest. It’s just naked, broken, sad trees.” Gray says her water was turned on two days after the storm and they have a filtration system, so it’s okay to drink and they stocked up on bottled water prior to the storm. She says gasoline for generators and vehicles is one of the hottest commodities on the island right now.

“Personally, we’re okay, we’ll be fine through this whole thing,” Gray says. “It’s just a matter of riding it out, but there are so many people here who don’t have fresh water to drink. They haven’t had power for weeks and they are definitely not okay.” Another thing that’s in short supply on Puerto Rico is patience, as there is a lot of standing around, waiting in line.

“There are people at the grocery store every single day because they don’t have any way to refrigerate their food because they don’t have any power or generators,” she says. “The grocery lines are almost as ridiculous as the lines at the gas stations.” There are also lines at automatic teller machines that could be two-to-four hours long on the hopes of withdrawing $20, if there’s any money left at all. Without power, credit and debit cards are useless. Some people are getting up in the middle of the night to get in line to get gas to run their generators.

(Thanks to Karla James, Omaha)

Climate Prediction Center issues a La Nina watch

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Iowa farmers are taking careful note as a La Nina Watch is being issued by the Climate Prediction Center for the fall and winter months.

That relates to cooler sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean which has an impact on weather across North America. Meteorologist Dennis Todey, director of the U.S.D.A.’s Midwest Climate Hub — based in Ames, says that prediction evolved quickly.

“La Nina looks like the most likely outcome of our three possibilities, La Nina, El Nino and neutral conditions,” Todey says. “La Nina is the most likely condition as we get out into September, October, November, all through the winter until February, March, April.” Todey says there are still questions about the possible impacts of this development.

“A number of the models vary from just marginal La Nina conditions to moderately strong ones,” Todey says. “There’s not a good consensus as to how strong this one will be, therefore, we’re kind of waffling on what the outlook is going to mean to us.” Todey says if a La Nina weather pattern develops, it could have more of an impact on winter weather.

“No where does CPC put in a below-average chance for temperature but they are saying mostly equal chances for below or above average,” Todey says. “You’re balancing this trend toward warmer winters with the La Nina conditions which have a little better probability of being cooler.” Todey says a La Nina system could also lead to more snow over the Midwest and Northern Plains this winter.

(By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton)

USDA loans available for severe storm losses on Iowa farms

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Iowa farmers may be eligible for low-interest government loans to cover “severe” physical losses from summer storms.

These USDA emergency loans are not for damage or struction of corn and soybeans in the field, but can cover “physical losses” to farm buildings, equipment and the death of livestock, The loans may cover damage to “perennial” crops like fruit trees as well as any crop that had been harvested and stored.

The losses must be connected to four storm systems that hit Iowa between June 22nd and August 18th. Those storms spawned flooding, hail and tornadoes.

Details provided by the USDA are below:

For the June 22 disaster event, an Administrator’s Physical Loss Notification has been issued for Butler and Franklin counties as the primary damaged area.

Additionally, 10 Iowa counties are contiguous to this designated disaster area, making these producers also potentially eligible for programs based on this designation. The contiguous counties are: Black Hawk, Bremer, Cerro Gordo, Chickasaw, Floyd, Grundy, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin and Wright.

For the June 28 disaster event, an Administrator’s Physical Loss Notification has been issued for Fremont, Jones, Linn, Marion, Page and Taylor counties as the primary damaged area.

Additionally, 20 Iowa counties are contiguous to this designated disaster area, making these producers also potentially eligible for programs based on this designation. The contiguous counties are: Adams, Benton, Buchanan, Cedar, Clinton, Delaware, Dubuque, Iowa, Jackson, Jasper, Johnson, Lucas, Mahaska, Mills, Monroe, Montgomery, Polk, Ringgold, Union and Warren.
Three Missouri counties, Atchison, Nodaway and Worth, and two Nebraska counties, Cass and Otoe, are also eligible for emergency loans because they are contiguous.

For the Aug. 10 disaster event, an Administrator’s Physical Loss Notification has been issued for Clinton County as the primary damaged area.
Additionally, four Iowa counties are contiguous to this designated disaster area, making these producers also potentially eligible for programs based on this designation. The contiguous counties are: Cedar, Jackson, Jones and Scott.

Three Illinois counties, Carroll, Rock Island and Whiteside, are also eligible for emergency loans because they are contiguous.

For the Aug. 18 disaster event, an Administrator’s Physical Loss Notification has been issued for Osceola County as the primary damaged area.

Additionally, five Iowa counties are contiguous to this designated disaster area, making these producers also potentially eligible for programs based on this designation. The contiguous counties are: Clay, Dickinson, Lyon, O’Brien and Sioux. 

Two Minnesota counties, Jackson and Nobles, are also eligible for emergency loans because they are contiguous.

FSA’s low interest emergency loans may be made available to any applicant with a qualifying loss in the counties named above. Approval is limited to applicants who suffered severe physical losses only.

Physical loss loans may be made to eligible farmers and ranchers to repair or replace damaged or destroyed physical property essential to the success of the agriculture operation, including livestock losses. Examples of property commonly affected include essential farm buildings, fixtures to real estate, equipment, livestock, perennial crops, fruit and nut bearing trees, and harvested or stored crops and hay.

Producers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of the declaration to apply for loans for physical losses.

Please contact FSA for more information on loan eligibility and the application process. FSA office information is available at http://offices.usda.gov. Additional FSA disaster assistance program information is available at http://disaster.fsa.usda.gov.

Heavy rains fall on dry ground in southeast Iowa

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In a region of the state that’s been plagued by extremely dry weather much of the summer, some roads were closed this morning due to flash flooding, the result of multiple downpours overnight.

Meteorologist Craig Cogil, at the National Weather Service, says parts of southeast Iowa were drenched, prompting flash flood warnings in Jefferson, Keokuk, Wapello and Washington counties.

“We saw persistent thunderstorms in and around the Ottumwa area during the overnight time frame and saw several inches of rainfall,” Cogil says. “We had a few reports of people with personal rain gauges with around seven inches and even a little bit more, just to the south of Ottumwa.” Some areas of southeast and south-central Iowa had storm after storm roll through during the night, dumping more rain in a few hours than some communities have seen in more than a month.

Cogil says, “We did have a report or two of some deeper standing water, but overall, impacts have been somewhat limited just due to how dry it’s been prior to the heavy rainfall.” Several counties across the region were rated in recent days as being under moderate-to-extreme drought conditions, which ended up being a benefit in this storm system.

“It’s been so dry, in fact, Ottumwa had one of the largest deficits in the state before this event as far as rainfall is concerned this summer,” Cogil says. “A lot of the soil had the capacity to soak in a lot of the rain that fell overnight and the impacts aren’t as bad as what they normally would have been for such a rainfall.”

The forecast says a wide section of Iowa may see more scattered thunderstorms throughout the day, the last full day of summer. The autumnal equinox is tomorrow at 3:02 P.M.

Abnormally dry to drought conditions reported in 70 percent of Iowa

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A new report shows the drought zone in Iowa has greatly expanded.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 70 percent of Iowa is abnormally dry or in some form of drought. A week ago, the report indicated about half of Iowa in those conditions. The area of extreme drought has expanded as well. All or parts of seven counties in south central and southeast Iowa are now in extreme drought.

Rain is falling in parts of western Iowa this morning. More than three inches of rain falls, on average, in Iowa during the month of September. So far this month, there are significant sections of the state that have had no rain.

The Iowa DNR’s Tim Hall  monitors water conditions. “Boy, the southeast quarter of the state has note seen even half of its rainfall this year. It’s just been relay, really tough,” Halls says. That area of the state had gotten enough rain to wipe out what had been moderate drought conditions back in April — making it abnormally dry. Hall says things changed quickly after that.

“Drought has a way of kind of sneaking up on you,” he says, “one day you are not in a drought and then you wake up a week later and things are pretty dry. It’s been a tough year.” Hall says orther states have been even more starved for rain.

“In the contiguous United States, the absolute worst drought conditions are in North Dakota and Montana. That sort of upper end of the Missouri River basin. Montana looks like drought conditions that were in California a couple of years ago — it’s really, really significant in Montana,” Hall says. “So you can really look at this as an extension of what’s been happening to our north and west.” Hall says it has been several years since any part of the state saw the extreme drought conditions now registered in southeast. He says 3% of the state is listed in extreme drought and 10% is in severe drought — so the positive side is that the majority of the state isn’t at the drought level.

“It’s not any where near as bad as it was in 2012 and ’13. It’s pretty localized to that southern, southeast corner of the state,” according to Hall. “If you happen to be in the middle of it — it’s pretty bad. But on a statewide average it’s not nearly as severe as five years ago.” Hall keeps an eye on stream flows as another measure of the water situation in the state.

He says stream flows have been right at normal for the year, so they are okay right now. Hall says the northwest part of the state has gotten some rains that have helped them improve stream flows that had started to become a concern a month or two ago. He says it would be nice to have some rain to boost those stream flows a little more, but the average rainfall totals drop off in each month now into fall and winter.

Dar Danielson also contributed to this story.

Iowa utility workers part of massive effort to fix Florida’s electric system

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Trucks from Iowa coops preparing to head to Georgia.

Some crews from Iowa are already there and others are leaving today to be part of an estimated 17,000 utilities workers who are helping Florida turn the power back on after Hurricane Irma.

MidAmerican Energy spokesman Adam Jacobi says the company headquartered in Des Moines sent around 250 workers to Florida.

He says the staging area is in Lake City, Florida and Florida Power and Light is determining where to send the crews. Around 200 Iowa and Wisconsin utility workers from Alliant Energy are heading to Florida today to help out.
The storm left more than 7 million people without power at one point, and Jacobi says it’s a big job to get everything repaired.”There’s a lot of cleanup that has to happen, just restoring wires poles…so this is not going to be an easy quick-fix by any stretch of the imagination,” Jacobi says.

Crews from 30 states and Canada are in Florida or on the way to help restore the power.

Fifteen Iowa electric cooperatives have sent 46 linemen and 26 vehicles to help an electric coop in southeast Georgia restore extensive power outages caused by the hurricane. The Okefenoke Rural Electric Membership Corporation along the Florida-Georgia line reported that 95 percent of its electric system was knocked out by the storm.

Here are the Iowa Coops which sent crews to Georgia:

Access Energy (Mt. Pleasant, IA), Allamakee-Clayton Electric Cooperative (Postville, IA), Chariton Valley Electric Cooperative (Albia, IA), Clarke Electric Cooperative (Osceola, IA), Consumers Energy (Marshalltown, IA), East-Central Iowa Rural Electric Cooperative (Urbana, IA), Eastern Iowa Light & Power Cooperative (Wilton, IA), Farmers Electric Cooperative (Greenfield, IA), Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives (Urbandale, IA), Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative ( Estherville, IA), Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative (Marion, IA), Midland Power Cooperative (Jefferson, IA), Prairie Energy Cooperative (Clarion, IA), Southern Iowa Electric Cooperative (Bloomfield, IA), and T.I.P. Rural Electric Cooperative (Brooklyn, IA).

(Pat Powers, KQWC contributed to this story. Photo courtesy of the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives.)