NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART I 19 
Sunshine and Cloudiness. — The average number of clear days was 
17; partly cloudy 9; cloudy 5. The duration of sunshine was slightly 
above the normal, the percentage of the possible amount being 70 at 
Davenport; 65 at Des Moines; 68 at Dubuque; 77 at Keokuk; 66 at Sioux 
City, and 64 at Omaha, Neb. 
Wind. — South and southwest winds prevailed. The highest velocity 
reported was 40 miles per hour from the northwest, at Sioux City, Wood- 
bury county, on the 15th. 
SEPTEMBER. 
The month of September, 1908, will go on record as having had the 
longest drouthy period of any September since the establishment of the 
Iowa Weather and Crop Service; and also for its long period of high 
temperatures and cloudless weather. The mean temperature was 4.2° 
above the normal, which has been exceeded but once, in 1897, during the 
past eighteen years. The temperature was above normal every day up to 
the 25th, except from the 1st to the 3d, and on the 7th, when it was slightly 
below noi'mal, due to moderately low temperature during the nights. 
From the 4th to the 25th, inclusive, the maximum temperatures ranged 
from 80° to above 90°, and the minimum temperatures were correspond- 
ingly high. A cool w^ave passed over the state between the night of the 
26th and the close of the month, which resulted in heavy to killing frosts 
oh the mornings of the 28th and 29th, with freezing temperatures over 
the larger part of the State on the latter date. 
The average precipitation was 1.20 inches, or 2.21 inches below the Sep- 
tember normal. With the exception of a very few light showers in the 
eastern counties on the 4th and 5th, the northeastern counties on the 
13th and in the northwestern counties on the 23d, there was no rain in 
the State from the night of August 31st to the night of September 2oth, 
making the longest period in any September without rain on record. 
Copious showers occurred in all parts of the State between the 26th 
and 28th; the heaviest rainfall being in the eastern half of the State. 
The high temperature, nearly cloudless skies, and the absence of rainfall 
made ideal weather conditions for ripening the corn and maturing the 
clover seed crop, but the drouthy conditions were severe on pastures, late 
potatoes and apples. Before the middle of the month, fall plowing was 
generally discontinued, pastures were dry and brown and stock water 
was getting scarce in many localities, and by the 25th the soil was dry 
and dusty. The water in all streams w^as lower than it had been in many 
years, and in some sections of the State, the stage of rivers was said to 
be lower than ever before known. While hot and dry weather was in- 
jurious to pastures and a few late crops, it was the salvation of the corn 
crop, and the bulk of it was safe from the effects of frost by the 25th. 
Some of the crop in late planted fields was, hovrever, pushed toward 
maturity too rapidly to make the best corn, but better thus than to have 
had it frozen w^hile in the milk or dough stage, as it surely would have 
b'een had the weather conditions been normal up to the time of the 
average date of the first killing frost. As it was, probably 90% of the 
crop escaped any material injury by the frost and freezing temperature, 
