Warm Winter Days in IA (Des Moines, Sioux City: 2013, high school, live)

[tvdxer]

Looking at the statistics, it appears that warm, spring-like days occur regularly in the winter in Iowa, especially southern Iowa. For example:

- It hit 60F on five separate occasions during the winter of 2011-12 in Des Moines, including 60F on New Year's Eve!
- It reached 69F on December 3rd, 2012 in Des Moines, and 60F the next day.
- Even in this cold monster of a winter, it hit 50F all three months of the meteorological season in Ottumwa. It was 62F on December 28th, 2013 and 65F in January at Sioux City.
- It has hit 70F or higher in winter months several times in the recent Iowa climatological record, including 73F in Keokuk, 71F in Leon, etc.

What do you do when it gets that warm? Is everybody outside after work/school? Do people walk around outside in shorts or boxers and T-shirts / tank tops / halter tops? Is there BBQing?

[steel03]

11-12 and 12-13 were strange winters (as warm as this one has been cold). It does occasionally warm up pretty much every winter, but I don't know if I'd necessarily call it a regular occurrence. Even in the Twin Cities there have been quite a few above-freezing days this winter.

[Meemur]

What do you do when it gets that warm?

Take an ice spud and break up the ice chunks at the end of my driveway from when the plow went through.

Is everybody outside after work/school?

The park paths have many walkers and joggers using them.

Do people walk around outside in shorts or boxers and T-shirts / tank tops / halter tops?

Mostly weird high school students and a few others who want to call attention to themselves. Serious joggers tend to remain in pants to keep muscles warm, although some wear shorts.

Is there BBQing?

There is at my house. Then again, grilling goes on most days where there isn't 25+ mph winds and rain/snow.

[ElleTea]

12-13 was not a warm winter. It snowed in May! That winter was a bad one and spring was much colder than it should have been.

11-12 was very warm.

[Omahahonors]

50-60 happens regularly in the area, so does 10-20 on the other extreme. 60+ is the result of being on a warm side of a powerful system which draws potent heat and potent cold.

The average highs during the coldest part of the year are a bit above freezing for the state.

[Omahahonors]

Omaha, which extends into southwest Iowa, saw many 45-65 degree days this winter. About a month's worth. However, we also saw a month's worth of sub-25 degree weather too.

[Omahahonors]

Elle is right in the fact that this winter was the ninth coldest for the state of Iowa since record keeping began.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by tvdxer

Looking at the statistics, it appears that warm, spring-like days occur regularly in the winter in Iowa, especially southern Iowa. For example:

- It hit 60F on five separate occasions during the winter of 2011-12 in Des Moines, including 60F on New Year's Eve!
- It reached 69F on December 3rd, 2012 in Des Moines, and 60F the next day.
- Even in this cold monster of a winter, it hit 50F all three months of the meteorological season in Ottumwa. It was 62F on December 28th, 2013 and 65F in January at Sioux City.
- It has hit 70F or higher in winter months several times in the recent Iowa climatological record, including 73F in Keokuk, 71F in Leon, etc.

What do you do when it gets that warm? Is everybody outside after work/school? Do people walk around outside in shorts or boxers and T-shirts / tank tops / halter tops? Is there BBQing?

If you want the Chinook impact frequently you would also like Omaha, Kansas City, or Denver more than Iowa. The impact of the Chinook winds or winter blowtorch diminishes along and east of Des Moines.

[sholomar]

Chinook effect is even more pronounced from Pierre, SD to Rapid City, SD down to Scottsbluff, NE and into eastern Colorado. The area from Scottsbluff, NE into eastern CO has some of the best 4 seasons climate in the country, IMO.

All I personally need are some days in the 40's to melt snow and maybe just a couple of 50-60 degree days in the winter months to be happy.. and from what I can tell Knoxville area has this. Better work in the Des Moines area... pay in Rapid City is on the low side... however Rapid City is warmer than Knoxville/Des Moines... no comparison. The warmth Des Moines gets won't be from chinook winds, but rather low pressure systems that bring up warm, moist air from the south.

I get so frustrated where I live because my town, Brookings, suffers from the opposite of the chinook effect... the surrounding elevation in 3 directions... west, east, and south, is around 1300 feet.. but we are up on something called the "coteau des prairies" and the elevation here is around 1650-1700 feet... so it's always colder here than everywhere else in all directions except the north usually... sometimes by 5-10 degrees. It's frustrating being so close to the warm chinook effect yet .. so far away. We're also less likely to get warm fronts from low pressure systems because they don't like coming this far west... so no chinook, plus no warm fronts, plus farther north, means it hardly gets above freezing here in the months of December, Jan, and Feb.. and indeed this winter it hardly did... we hit 35 a couple of days... otherwise... deep freeze. The snow piles up and does look pretty though.

[Dport7674]

Shorts and tank tops because the temps reached into the 50's? No.

But it's nice to have a day to leave the door open for an hr and air out the place a bit.