(Area) There’s no question what the biggest weather story was in the month of December. State Climatologist Justin Glisan says the December 15th tornado outbreak and derecho will be studied for years to come.
There were 43 tornadoes on December 15th which broke the state record of 35 set in August of 2014. “We had a December outbreak of 43 tornadoes which is the highest December outbreak in United States history, but also the highest tornado outbreak for the state of Iowa in history.” Glisan says, “In December…that’s just astounding to think about.”
The month as a whole was much warmer than normal with a statewide average temperature of 32 degrees or 6.5 degrees above a typical December. Glisan says outside of the 15th the weather pattern was quiet which led to unseasonably dry conditions. The statewide precipitation average was 0.9″ or 0.5″ below normal. Snowfall totals were 6″ below normal at a statewide average of 2″.
Glisan says, “Looking at Southwest Iowa the average temperature was 35 degrees and that’s nine degrees above normal which is exceptional for December. Additionally the Southwest Corner experienced below normal precipitation and that came in at a little over 0.4″ and that’s 0.7″ below normal.”
Atlantic was one of several areas to record a record high temperature. The old record came on December 6th, 1939 at 69 degrees. The new Atlantic record for any date in December is 72 degrees which was set on the 15th. “The average high for the month was 46 degrees and that’s 10 degrees above normal. The average low was six degrees above normal at 21 degrees. Atlantic received .16″ of precipitation while the normal is an inch and a half.”
Just 0.2″ of snow fell in Atlantic and the December average is 7.2″.
