Wow, what a turn around from the 20s we had on Thursday! It’s been a tale of two seasons this week going from 20 degree highs to 55+ warmth in one day. The past couple of days have been downright beautiful featuring bright sunny days and highs in the mid 50s. Here in the Des Moines area it was 55.F on Thursday, 53.F today – both days had crystal blue skies. This type of weather certainly makes the cold weather we put up with worth it, or at least it makes it a little easier. The warm up quickly did away with the last of the winter snow cover and all of central and southern Iowa are snow free as of March 7th.

The warmth and sunshine were all we needed to jump-start plants! Three days ago there was no signs of and new spring bulbs sprouting. Day two into the warm-up and Tulips have starting to un curl their leaves. After cleaning off the gardens for spring today I’ve seen Daylilies, Daffodils and Columbine all starting to come and surely there will be more this week as it stays warm and gets even warmer into the mid 60s! We will be in a fast race for the first bloom of 2015 and so far the Crocus are the closest and should be just days away!

Ever wonder how snow cover may affect the temperatures? Well, the past two days has been very good example of just how snow cover can keep temperatures much cooler. Most of Iowa has been in the middle to upper 50s except the north-eastern 1/4th of Iowa which has snow cover that can be seen clearly from space! The snow cover has kept things cooler over there even with the same conditions as the rest of the state. Ames today was 49.F but in Cedar Rapids where there is much more snow cover it was 41.F but both areas had sunshine.

To show how impressive the warm up was, I’ve included highs Thursday and Friday below:

Des Moines Airport 21.F/56.F
Cumming 24.F/55.F
Ankeny 21.F/54.F
Osceola 22.F/56.F
Creston 25.F/55.F
Chariton 23.F/54.F
Knoxville 21.F/54.F
Pella 21.F/53.F
Newton 16.F/48.F
Marshalltown 13.F/42.F
Ames 17.F/49.F
Boone 19.F/50.F
Perry 22.F/53.F