Last month was wettest May on record for Charles City

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The previous month was the wettest May in Charles City since records began being kept in 1893, according to the National Weather Service.

The Charles City area received 12.07 inches of rain last month, beating the previous record of 10.19 inches in May 2004. The next highest amounts were 9.29 inches in May 2013, 9.19 inches in May 1902, and 9.15 inches in 1903.

Several other months in other years recorded more rain than this May, including 18.48 inches in Charles City in July 1999, 15.83 inches in September 2016 and 13.6 inches in August 1979.

This year’s soggy wet May with more than twice the usual amount of rain in the Charles City area did a great deal to help move the region out of drought conditions, according to the latest weather records.

The weekly drought report issued by the U.S. Drought Monitor, released last Thursday, shows that no part of Iowa is currently classified as being in a drought.

A wide crescent-shaped area curling around northeastern Iowa, including Floyd County and most of its immediate neighbors, is still listed as “abnormally dry” and makes up about a quarter of the land in the state. But that is the lowest classification on the U.S. Drought Monitor’s maps.

For much of last year and the beginning of this year, Floyd County and the area around it had been classified in the second-to-the-highest drought category – “extreme drought.”

The total 12.07 inches of rain Charles City received last month compares to the average in May since 1991 of 5.06 inches, according to National Weather Service records. The average amount of Charles City precipitation received in May going back to 1893 has been 4.46 inches.

So far this year, Charles City has received 18.48 inches of rain, more than 5½ inches above the January to May average of 12.87 inches.

However, going back a year, the area is still in a moisture deficit, with the 12 months from June 2023 to May 2024 receiving 28.63 inches, compared with the average of 37.72 inches, or about 76% of the “normal” amount.

According to the weekly Iowa Crop Progress and Condition report, in the northcentral district that includes Floyd County, only 1% of the cropland in the northcentral district was listed as “short” on topsoil moisture; with 83% rated as “adequate” and 16% “surplus” topsoil moisture.

Subsoil moisture was nearly as good, with 80% “adequate” and 17% “surplus.”

The report, issued Monday afternoon by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, showed that the northcentral district was 95% complete on corn planting and 86% complete on soybeans. Those match the statewide averages, with 95% of the corn planted statewide and 86% of the beans.

The corn crop is 89% emerged in the district, and the soybeans are 62% emerged.

For the first time in several weeks, the final reporting period of May had below average rainfall across much of Iowa; only pockets of northwest and eastern Iowa observed unseasonably wet conditions.

Temperatures varied from cooler than average east to near-normal across the state’s western half; the statewide average temperature was 64.4 degrees, 0.6 degree below normal, according to State Climatologist Justin Glisan with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

Glisan said this past May may go on the records as one of the 10th wettest Mays in Iowa since records started being kept in the late 1800s.