Heavy rain fell in the middle of the month across portions of north central and northeast Iowa sending the Cedar River at Cedar Falls into flood twice in a little over a week.
Every event with a place to put it. Tap one for its entry below.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS DMX wrote it up.
Heavy rain fell in the middle of the month across portions of north central and northeast Iowa sending the Cedar River at Cedar Falls into flood twice in a little over a week.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Des Moines, IA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Sep 10, 5:33 AM CST, 6 hours earlier.
Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Des Moines IA 633 AM CDT Sat Sep 10 2016 .SHORT TERM.../Today/ Issued at 309 AM CDT Sat Sep 10 2016 Overall quiet and enjoyable day expected over the region today. First in a series of cold fronts already exiting the southeast at 05z with a secondary cool front/wind shift over southern Minnesota. The second boundary has not yet realized the cooler air aloft but is a reflection of an upper level H850 cool front located from near International Falls southwest to near Huron at 00z. This front is tracking into northern Iowa at 06z and has resulted in another period of light showers and lower stratus. The feature will pull quickly east southeast overnight and will be out of the area prior to dawn. In the wake of the second boundary a reinforcing cooler and drier airmass over the Northern Plains will move southeast into Iowa today through tonight. Despite the drier airmass today there should be some fair weather clouds this afternoon. Any time a modest to significant rainfall occurs the evaporation of surface moisture normally is enough to create fair weather clouds the day following the rain...unless subsidence is extraordinarily large. Today...Bufr soundings show few to scattered shallow cumulus at about 4000 feet this afternoon setting up shop between about 11 am and 2 pm this afternoon. As well...mixing will begin to occur between 14 and 16z with gusts nearing 30 mph at times during the afternoon hours. Highs will be very comfortable and even cooler than our normal highs in the mid 70s north to upper 70s south. Today we will end up about 5 to 7 degrees cooler across the board. .LONG TERM.../Tonight through Friday/ Issued at 309 AM CDT Sat Sep 10 2016 Saturday night through Sunday night... Weather: Quiet, near normal temperatures Impact: None Confidence: High To round out this weekend, high pressure will propagate across the Ozarks Saturday night and push into the Ohio Valley region by Sunday afternoon. This will place Iowa in S/SW flow, helping to increase Sunday afternoon temps a few degrees vs Saturday's max temps. With a dry fcst sounding profile, clouds will be hard to come by. Monday and Tuesday... Weather: Shower and thunderstorm potential Impact: Heavy rainfall Confidence: Medium As the aforementioned high pushes further east, an upper trough will swing eastward across Canada Monday into Tuesday. Models in good agreement depicting an impulse ejecting off the upper low and shooting through the upper Midwest, making it into MN by Monday afternoon. This sfc low will have an attendant cold front which will be highlighted by a notable dewpoint depression tailing it. Sfc dewpoints will go from the mid/upper 60s ahead of the boundary, to the mid/upper 40s behind the boundary. A 30 to 35kt LLJ will aid in rushing low level gulf moisture to Iowa by Monday afternoon. Q- vectors pointing towards warm air and crossing potential temp gradient as boundary passes through NW Iowa during daylight hours, indicating frontogenesis. Thus, may have to further increase PoP and QPF across northern CWA in future updates. In terms of impacts, overall setup not cause for alarm at this point. 00z Sat models trending upwards with PWATs, bringing to Iowa values of around 1.75", which is approx +1 std dev. 0-6 km muCAPE values approach 1500 j/kg. Warm cloud depths indicated to be near 1300m coincident with the Monday PM moisture surge. Big negative for severe wx is strong 750mb cap shown in fcst soundings. It appears timing will be difficult to get boundary and moisture surge to line up during peak daytime heating hours. Wednesday through Thursday... Weather: Below normal temperatures Impact: None Confidence: Medium A stacked 1030mb high will follow this system and advect much cooler air to the region. 850mb temps will be in the +7C to +11C range into Thursday. Models trying to push the 1030mb high into the Great Lakes Region by Thursday morning, but this seems awfully fast given the magnitude of this high. Therefore, have lowered Thursday temps vs guidance and have begun to push Friday's PoP arrival back...with slight expectation for them to be scaled back in subsequent updates. && .AVIATION.../For the 12Z TAFS through 12Z Sunday morning/ Issued at 633 AM CDT Sat Sep 10 2016 Main challenge today will be wind and patch of IFR stratus developing across north central Iowa at this time. HIRES HRRR has areal coverage of IFR stratus expanding south to Des Moines this morning all behind a boundary bringing colder air over the region. HRRR looks a bit overdone. Expect stratus to mix out by 15z with only KMCW and perhaps KALO affected. Have scattered out KALO to 015 by 15z. Remainder of day...breezy northwest flow of 15-25kts will diminish by 23z with light southwest winds aft 00z to end of period with VFR conditions. /rev && .DMX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && SHORT TERM...REV LONG TERM...Kotenberg AVIATION...REV
HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DES MOINES IA 316 AM CDT SAT SEP 10 2016 IAZ004>007-015>017-023>028-033>039-044>050-057>062-070>075- 081>086-092>097-110830- EMMET-KOSSUTH-WINNEBAGO-WORTH-PALO ALTO-HANCOCK-CERRO GORDO- POCAHONTAS-HUMBOLDT-WRIGHT-FRANKLIN-BUTLER-BREMER-SAC-CALHOUN- WEBSTER-HAMILTON-HARDIN-GRUNDY-BLACK HAWK-CRAWFORD-CARROLL-GREENE- BOONE-STORY-MARSHALL-TAMA-AUDUBON-GUTHRIE-DALLAS-POLK-JASPER- POWESHIEK-CASS-ADAIR-MADISON-WARREN-MARION-MAHASKA-ADAMS-UNION- CLARKE-LUCAS-MONROE-WAPELLO-TAYLOR-RINGGOLD-DECATUR-WAYNE- APPANOOSE-DAVIS- 316 AM CDT SAT SEP 10 2016 THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF CENTRAL IOWA. .DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT NO HAZARDOUS WEATHER IS EXPECTED AT THIS TIME. .DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...SUNDAY THROUGH FRIDAY THUNDERSTORMS ARE LIKELY MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT. THUNDERSTORMS ARE POSSIBLE ON THURSDAY NIGHT INTO FRIDAY. THE THREAT FOR SEVERE WEATHER IS LOW. .SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT... SPOTTER ACTIVATION IS NOT ANTICIPATED AT THIS TIME. KOTENBERG
The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.
2 flood. Local standard time, as filed.
The Cedar River at Cedar Falls crested at 88.69 feet on 12 September 2016 at 4 am CDT.
The Cedar River at Cedar Falls crested at 89.35 feet on 19 September 2016 at 7 am CDT.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Iowa in 2016Every state in 2016This day in weather historyWarnings in Iowa, September 2016
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 658436, 658437.