Today felt more like we are approaching summer instead of mid winter as warm southwesterly breezes brought unprecedented warmth into our state. Highs ranged from the lower to middle 70s across the south to 50s and 60s across the north with numerous daily record high temperatures being broken, in some cases by quite a few degrees. Instead of coats and hats it was shorts and T shirts that many people were wearing while they were outside enjoying the mid winter warmth. The high in Des Moines today was 75.F which is a new record high for February 17th which is only 3 degrees from February’s all time record high of 78. So just how often do we have 70s in February? It’s actually pretty rare for such a northerly area it typically only happens once a decade even though you wouldn’t think it because this is the second year in a row we had 70s in February. However before 2016 and now this year the last time it was 70 in February was in 1990.

Highs seen today R indicates a record broken

Omaha 75.F R
Des Moines 75.F R
Osceola 75.F
Lamoni 74.F
Pella 74.F
Ottumwa 74.F
Washington 74.F
Iowa City 74.F
Shenandoah 73.F
Muscatine 73.F
Creston 72.F
Keokuk 72.F
Davenport ( Quad Cities Airport ) 73.F R
Cedar Rapids 71.F R
Marshalltown 71.F
Ames 71.F R
Waterloo 69.F R
Carroll 68.F
Sioux City 66.F
Dubuque 65.F R
Fort Dodge 64.F
Storm Lake 61.F
Mason City 60.F
Decorah 59.F
Sheldon 59.F
Spencer 59.F