By Ethan Hewett (Radio Iowa)
After last year’s record tornado outbreak, Iowa is having a relatively mild severe weather season this year, according to state climatologist Justin Glisan.
Now that we’re into August and out of what’s considered the peak season for twisters, Glisan says Iowa has seen few tornadoes by comparison this year.
“We started off in April with ten tornadoes when we typically see six, and then you go into May, we had no tornadoes reported, and this is the first May since 2010 in which we can say that,” Glisan says. “Then we had in June and July around 20 tornadoes, very weak.”
During July alone, Iowa had more than 180 severe wind reports, but Glisan says overall, the late spring and summer have provided a reprieve from “widespread” severe weather. A powerful storm that’s now classified as a derecho swept across northern and eastern Iowa last week, with winds peaking at 99 miles an hour. Still, Glisan says severe weather has been much more active in the southern U.S.
“Then we’ve seen some episodic severe weather across the upper Midwest, the northern part of the United States, where another jet stream has set up a polar jet,” Glisan says. “We’re kind of in the middle of those two interfaces, and that’s what’s given us really a lack of severe weather.”
While the traditional peak severe weather season is now behind us, Glisan reminds tornadoes can strike during any season and in any month. He cites December of 2021 as a prime example, when Iowa was hit with a derecho and 63 tornadoes on a single day during the year’s final month.
“We’ve expanded the severe weather season further into fall and earlier in spring,” Glisan says. “So be weather aware, have your weather radio ready to go, have a weather app on your smartphone, have a ‘go bag’ in your house in case you have to evacuate, and even one in your car. We’re talking about severe weather during the warm season, but we also have to think about severe weather in terms of snow storms and ice storms that we see in wintertime.”
Last year, Iowa had more reported tornadoes than ever before — at 125.
