It’s starting to get difficult o remember what a “normal” year of weather is supposed to feel like.

Globally, 2025 will likely end up the third warmest in recorded history. What made the year stand out was how relentlessly warm it was, how little relief there seemed to be between events, and how often the unusual felt routine. Heat lingered. Storms hit harder. Rain fell in bursts instead of soaking in. And the seasons themselves felt slightly out of sync, as if they were slipping past their old boundaries.

Globally, temperatures spent much of the year hovering near record territory. Oceans stayed unusually warm, which mattered more than most people realized-feeding moisture into storms, raising overnight temperatures, and quietly stacking the deck toward extremes. Heat waves weren’t isolated spikes; they were stretches. Nights stayed warm. Recovery windows shrank. Even when the weather wasn’t actively dangerous, it was often exhausting.

The impacts showed up everywhere. Wildfires burned longer and more aggressively. Flooding followed intense rain events that overwhelmed drainage systems built for a different climate. In the U.S., billion-dollar weather disasters once again piled up - not because we were unlucky, but because the baseline has changed. What used to be a worst-case scenario now happens with uncomfortable regularity.

And yet, there was a paradox to 2025. In many cases, fewer people died than they might have in the past. Forecasting is better. Warnings are faster. Emergency managers and communities are more experienced. That progress matters. But it also masks the deeper problem: we are working harder and spending more just to avoid falling behind.

Iowa, Up Close

In Iowa, 2025 felt like a greatest-hits album of modern Midwest weather—only louder.

Temperatures ran warmer than average again, continuing a trend that has quietly reshaped daily life across the state. Summers now carry more humidity, more heat stress, and fewer true cool-downs. Spring warmth arrives earlier, winter cold still shows up—but it’s less reliable, more erratic. Here are some stats for Des Moines:

• Highest temperature: 97° (6/21)

• Wettest day: 3.84” (5/19)

• Snowiest day: 8.9” (11/29)

• Lowest temperature: -13° (1/21)

  

  

Rainfall was a tale of swings. There were weeks when fields soaked up welcome moisture, followed by stretches where rain came too fast and too heavy to be helpful. July stood out, with rainfall totals that rivaled some of the wettest summers on record. For agriculture, that meant both opportunity and risk: strong growth in some areas, flooding, erosion, and nutrient loss in others.

Severe storms were a recurring theme. Damaging winds, tornado outbreaks, and fast-moving convective systems reminded Iowans that climate change doesn’t mean fewer storms - it means storms that carry more energy. Even winter refused to stay quiet, delivering disruptive snow events that strained travel and infrastructure. Iowa still experienced all four seasons in 2025, but the margins between them felt thinner.

What 2025 Leaves Behind

If there’s a lesson from 2025, it isn’t hidden in a single headline or disaster. It’s in the accumulation. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. A warmer planet raises the floor for every heat wave. A warmer ocean quietly influences weather patterns thousands of miles away.

This is no longer about whether climate change is happening. It’s about how quickly our systems, physical, economic, and social, can adapt to a reality where extremes are no longer rare.

As we head into 2026, the question isn’t whether the weather will calm down. It’s whether we’ll stop treating years like 2025 as anomalies, and start planning for them as the norm.

Because that’s what they are now.

Leave a comment

Share

I’m proud to be part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, a community of independent journalists and storytellers who care about Iowa and its stories. Being in that circle has connected me with writers whose work deepens my own reporting and reminds me why local voices matter.

Iowa Writers Collaborative Roundup

Linking readers and professional writers who care about Iowa.

By Julie Gammack