DES MOINES, Iowa — Hurricane Ian will make landfall in Florida later this week, and produce devastating impacts to parts of the state from storm surge, flooding and hurricane-force winds.
But how will a mammoth hurricane hundreds of miles away affect the weather across Iowa this week?
Think of the atmosphere like a series of waves in the ocean: When the ocean flows “normally," those waves follow one another in a relatively predictable way in both time between the waves and intensity. Think of Ian as someone in the middle of the waves disrupting their flow. That is exactly what will happen across the eastern half of the continental U.S. as Ian makes landfall in the southeast.
The system will disrupt the “normal” wave pattern, causing high pressure to linger across the Midwest and Great Lakes for longer than usual. That will cause the weather across Iowa to be quiet for an extended period of time through this weekend: great for harvest season.
Once Ian finally progresses into the southeastern U.S. this weekend, the “normal wave train” across much of the country will be placed back on the tracks, potentially bringing the next chance for rain early next week.
While weather in the Upper Midwest will be incredibly quiet and fall-like for the next five to seven days, the exact opposite will be true across the Florida peninsula, with significant damage likely, some catastrophic, especially near the Tampa area and Gulf Coast of Florida this week.