By Pat Powers (Radio Iowa)

State Climatologist, Justin Glisan, says Iowa is on pace to have the warmest February on record. “It’s the warmest February to the 16th on record with 152 years of records we’re about 17 degrees above average,” Glisan says.

He says the colder temperatures today and tomorrow will have some impact, but temperatures are going to warm back up. Glisan says we have two weeks to go before the end of the climatological winter, which he says has been drier than normal. “Coming off of the third snowiest January on record we’ve really been dry, only three one-hundredths of an inch reported statewide as an average so far,” he says.

Glisan doesn’t see a lot of change through the end of the month.”This is a function of the strong El Nino that we have set up in the eastern Pacific. warmer ocean waters fire more thunderstorms. Those thunderstorms impact where the jet streams set up over the United States,” Glisan says. So the polar jet is further north. subtropical jet states flatter towards the south metro. We see a lot of precipitation along the Gulf states, and we’re stuck in between so warmer weather and a less active storm track.”

Glisan said early indications are that the warm weather will continue into the first few weeks of March. March 1st begins the three month climatological spring for the northern hemisphere.