By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

State Climatologist Justin Glisan says the spring of 2024 has been the eighth wettest spring in Iowa since 1872 — the first year weather records were kept for the State of Iowa.

Glisan says it’s been a rollercoaster of weather for the past six months. “You look at the severe weather season we’ve had — 116 tornadoes, when we average about 44 per year…You think of the hail and high wind events, also,” Glisan says. “The set up we’ve been in has been a drought buster, though, with all these thunderstorms. We’ve had a record amount of rainfall, particularly in spring, but also in May — the sixth wettest May on record.”

A warmer than normal winter — and especially January’s blizzard — had a role in setting the stage for a wet spring.

“We had that epic amount of snow pack,” Glisan says. “It actually insulated the surface, didn’t allow arctic air to get down deep, so the frost level really wasn’t there.”

Glisan says it let the melting snow sink into the soil and early spring rains were able to soak in as well. The combination ended drought conditions throughout the state after 204 consecutive weeks of drought. Glisan says it’s difficult to forecast severe weather far in advance, but warner and wetter conditions heading into this past spring did signal there’d be thunderstorms.

“If we look at the climate model and getting out several decades in that April, May, June timeframe, we are seeing the ingredients coming together more often to support severe weather, at least in the spring,” Glisan says, “kind of ebbing off into the summertime.”

Glisan, though, points to long term forecasts that indicate Iowa is likely to see warm and wet conditions, so more thunderstorms this week. While there have been 116 tornadoes so far this year, only seven of them happened in June, which is typically the month when the most tornadoes strike in Iowa.

Glisan made his comments during a weekend appearance on “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS.